Not minding what happens

The Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti famously revealed his “secret” to the attendees of one of his lectures: “You see, I don’t mind what happens.”

So much attention and energy is burned when we mind what happens — when we lament about or anticipate what it will be like if certain things do not go our way.

Everybody misses a target sometimes, everybody is occasionally surprised by life.

This is normal.

To find a way to accept this, to manage to fully embrace the ever-present reality that things may not go your way such that you feel no need to mind it it is to conserve precious attention for things in life that are more worthy of of it like the people around you now and other goals that you can meaningfully contribute to now.

Attention is zero-sum. To pay it here is to not to pay it there.

To mind what you can’t control is to forego sight of what you can.

Work hard for the outcomes that matter but don’t burn yourself out by fully expecting them.