Lexicon

Dim-witted assistant

Imagine that you have a dim-witted assistant that can help you with your projects. With this assistant, you need to be careful to specify easy tasks that won't overwhelm the assistant. You'll want to reassure the assistant that after they are done with a task, you'll get back together with them to reassess the situation. So, the assistant need not worry about evaluating what they are doing, their job is just to complete the task. Imagine that this dim-witted assistant is you.

This idea is for helping you separate planning from doing. So, you can think of it as involving wearing different hats when you're doing each. When my partner was wearing his dim-witted assistant hat, he once had the insight that he wasn't being dim-witted enough. Meaning, if the task can't be carried out in dim-witted mode, then you need to switch back to planner mode to figure out what you need to do to break the task up so that each piece can be carried out in dim-witted mode.

Note that this doesn't mean the planner has to have it all figured out. Leeann's advisor, Steve, who came up with the dim-witted assistant idea, thought we could call the planner the cowardly delegator. Another way of looking at it that I've found helpful is to think of the planner as a playful participant. Click here to see a description of being a playful participant with interacting with your subconscious, and note that you can also be a playful participant with your conscious processes, too.

Too many cows

From: https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/blog/2020/1/17/releasing-our-cows

If you have too many cows to take care of, then you have no time.

Many of you may not have heard about cow releasing. The story is like this: One day the Buddha was sitting with his monks in the woods. They had just finished their mindful lunch and were about to start a question and answer session. A peasant passed by and asked the Buddha, “Dear monk, have you seen my cows passing by here?”

The Buddha said, “What cows?”

“My cows, six of them, I don’t know why but this morning they all ran away. I had also cultivated three acres of sesame seeds, but this year the insects ate them all. I think I am going to kill myself. I have lost everything!”

The Buddha said, “Dear friend, we have not seen your cows passing by here. You better look for them in the other direction.” After the farmer had gone, the Buddha looked at his monks and smiled and said, “My dear friends, do you know that you are lucky, you do not have any cows to lose.”

Sometimes, we possess a number of things, and we think that these possessions are very crucial to our happiness, our safety. But if you look deeply, you’ll see that maybe what you possess are obstacles for your happiness. If you know how to let them go, to release your cow, happiness becomes possible.