Simplify Life for Clarity
Simplify your life by making clear choices about where your time goes, because clarity of purpose only comes to people who want it enough to give other things up.
Now a priest, husband, father and business owner, Dandapani says the key to clarity is simplification, and that the real problem is not moving too fast but doing too much. He describes what he gave up at twenty one to go to the monastery, and offers a five minute daily practice of self-reflection that almost nobody makes room for.
What this talk covers
- He has the same struggles as anyone with a family and a business, and his answer is simplification, because the common advice to slow down misses the point when the real issue is that we are doing too much.
- Desire comes first, and for most people clarity of purpose is a passing thought they do not want badly enough to get.
- Simplification means clear choices about time, which means less going out, less television, less music and less time on your favourite hobby.
- Front end the work, because a few months or a year spent getting crystal clear on purpose shapes the rest of your life, and once you know what you are saying yes to, you know what you are saying no to.
- The practice is five minutes each morning, before the phone, sitting with no music, podcasts, journals or books, asking yourself what you want, and there are twenty four of those five minute segments inside a single two hour dinner.
And once you know what you're saying yes to in life, you know what you're saying no to in life.Dandapani
Questions
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Make really clear choices about where your time goes. Dandapani names spending less time going out, watching television, listening to music and on your favourite hobby as where that time comes from.
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Dandapani's answer is that most people do not desire it badly enough, so it stays a passing thought. Desire has to come first, then simplification of your life makes room for the work.
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Five minutes, sitting in a room with no music, podcasts, journals or books, asking yourself what you want. He points out that a two hour dinner contains twenty four of those five minute segments.
Transcript
725 words · 3:38
Now I'm not a monk anymore. I'm a priest, I'm a householder, I have a wife, I have a daughter, I have my own business, I have the same struggles. I would say the key is simplification. We need to simplify our life. And one of the common sayings you hear people say all the time is that, you know, we're going too fast, we need to slow down. And I don't think slow down on the right choice of
words, we're just doing too much, right? So if finding clarity of having clarity of your purpose in life is something you truly desire, you have to have the desire for it first. And I can tell you Scott right off the bat, and point 9999% of the people don't desire it badly enough. And that's why they never get it. It's a passing thought for most people. But if you truly desire it,
Then the next step is whether you're a householder with three kids, wife, husband, business, working somewhere, simplify your life. What does simplification mean? Make really clear choices of where you're spending your time. And that means spending less time going out, spending less time watching TV, listening to music, doing your favorite hobby. That's what you need to do.
And for me, always front end the work. If you have clarity, you can spend a few months, a year, figuring out your purpose now, and having clarity of that, crystal clear clarity. Imagine what the rest of your life would be.
And once you know what you're saying yes to in life, you know what you're saying no to in life. And then your whole life can be aligned with that purpose and think of the outcomes of that. How beautiful and wonderful that would be. When my guru asked me, and I told him when I met him that I wanted enlightenment,
he asked me, what are you willing to do for it? And I said, I'm willing to give up my life for it. I was 21 years old. I could do, I mean, all my friends were having an amazing time out in the world in Australia,
you know, dating, going to the beach, traveling. I'm in the grand old time. I said, I'll give up all of this and go to the monastery, and this is what I want. And at the end of the day, Scott, most people don't desire it badly enough,
and that's why they never get it. I think a lot of us struggle with giving up 20 minutes a morning, whatever it is, for a practice. And, you know, I give a simple analogy sometimes in my workshops, you know, I say, what if
you woke up in the morning, don't look at your phone, you spend five minutes, and your wife or husband can definitely pin down your kids for five minutes. That's doable. And you spend five minutes sitting in a room with no music, no podcasts, no journals, no
books, and spend that in self-reflection, not meditation, but self-reflection, asking yourself questions like, what do I want? And obviously you may not have the answers the first day, and you do that every day.
And the more you and I have a conversation over a glass of wine, the better we know each other. So take that same approach. Now people go like, all right, five minutes,
it's very difficult. But then if someone invites you to go have dinner with them, you'll say, yeah, let's go have dinner on Thursday. And that might be a two hour dinner.
And do you know how many five minute segments they are in two hours? That's 24, if I'm doing the math correctly, 24 five minute segments.
So if you said no to the dinner, you literally could sit with yourself for five minutes every day for 24 days straight. We make choices, right? We'll say yes to the dinner, spend two hours there, which has five, 24, five minute segments,
but we won't make time to spend five minutes with ourselves. Because we're going like, well, this is not profound enough. And it's better if I go under the Pazna Retreat or pay $5,000 for the Kundalini Yoga seminar by soon.
So no one wants to do the work.