Best Advice...

Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer
Religion-Outside-The-Box

Goal of this exercise:

• To give you the sage-most advice that you could use today!

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What you need: 12 minutes.

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Part one:

Picture yourself at your current age – right now, where you are.  Doing exactly what you are doing.  Reading these words.  Breathing.  Thinking. 

(Not too hard an exercise so far, right?)

Now imagine yourself at your current age minus 10-15 years.

Think about something you wished that you, 10-15 years ago, could have benefited from hearing from you now -- you, 10-15 years wiser than you were then. 

 

Here's the amazing thing: YOU CAN GIVE YOUR PAST SELF ADVICE! 

(I know it's hard to believe, but just go with this for a moment.  And I know that as this is on a web-page, it seem a little hokey; nonetheless, just go with it.)

All you need to know is that when you press the pulsing button that is below you will be transported in time and able to tell your 10-15 year younger version of yourself something!

(Pretty cool, huh?)

Now, let me tell you the two little bad parts of the little scientific experience that you are about to go on. 

• One: the amount of time that you will get in the past will be about only 2.9 seconds.  About as long as it takes you to take a breath of air in and out.  That's it. 
• Two: you will probably not feel any physical change right now.

"So," you ask, "what's the good of being able to go back to yourself 10-15 years younger than you are right now for only three seconds?  It's not enough time to explain anything!"

Well, 3 seconds is just enough to slip a small note in the pocket or purse of the you minus 10-15 years. 

And that's just what is going to happen when you press that flashing button below: the current you, at your current age -- with all the knowledge and wisdom that you didn't have 10-15 years ago -- is going to press the flashing button, be transported in time, and put a piece of paper into the pocket or purse of the you 10-15 years younger than you are right now.

There is one last 'rule' to this little journey you are about to go on:

• Due to limitations in space/time travel (including the ramifications of changing your past too much which would drastically upset the current world as it is): on the note that you are to put in your past self's pocket or purse, you are allowed a maximum of 3 lines, 36 characters per line.

So, think about what that magic phrase would be. That magic phrase that had I known this then, I would be a little more present to my life right now.

(This is not a two-week project. It is something that you have less than 2 minutes to figure out. DO NOT PROCRASTINATE THIS! You can do this. I know that if I were with you right at this very moment, we would come up with an awesome answer and I'm confident that you will be able to do this by yourself...)

If everything went all correctly, you, 10-15 years ago, just got a note from you! (Space/time travel is so cool!)

NOTE:
While it is important that you 10-15 years ago got that note then, it's also important that you remember this lesson now. So, please write this phrase out and figure out at least one place that you are certain to see it five times in the next three days. For example: in your wallet, on a mirror, as the message screen on your cell-phone.

The note that I just wrote to myself -- that I received 10-15 years ago reads: Relax a little. God is here. And, I chose to write it on the back of my cell-phone to remind me of it.

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Part two:

Now that you have your phrase from the past, we are ready to bump it up a notch.

Take a breath. (Reminder: exhaling is part of a full breath!)

Think about your tombstone.

For this exercise it doesn't matter what your funeral desires are. (Religion-Outside-The-Box encourages everybody to put their funeral wishes in writing so that family members can honor their last requests.)

We're talking about your 'proverbial' tombstone.

If you had the chance to write a "descriptive quote" that would be put on the bottom of your tombstone -- some words that people visiting you would see -- what is it that you want it to read?

(This is just like the last exercise, except this time, you are thinking about what you, dead, would want to tell the current, living you.)

What is the phrase that you, now deceased, would want to remind you, still living? What might the dead you, perhaps the you in 10-15 years, tell the you who is reading these words right now?

Jane once came across one that read, "Esther, princess of humanity."

What phrase do you think that you, who is on the other side of this life thing would want to tell you who is living?

Think about it. Give it a few moments of time for a phrase to come to you.

 

(A number of people find themselves surprised that the phrase from part one and the phrase from part two are the same! This, actually, is not surprising at all. You, currently reading this, just got the answer from part one only five minutes ago! Of course it might still be something you want to work on.)

As I have had some time to think about this second part for a little bit, I can tell you what I'm thinking I want my proverbial tombstone to read: "I'm finally not thinking so much -- I think."

My friend Jodi, a dear friend who helped me think this whole exercise through and a perpetual optimist, has decided on: "I assume I'm in a better place."

What phrase do you want there?

 

 

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So as long as you got one answer, we come to the end.

We did what was stated to be the goal:

To give you the sage-most advice that you could use today!

 

With love,

 

Rabbi Brian

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