This website has a pretty ambitious subject.
The magic to change the world!
It sounds exciting, but it can also be a little bit daunting.
So, before we get carried away, let’s discuss some limits. Let’s talk a bit about what we can and can’t do with our power.
Because, just like Aladdin’s genie, we have the potential for incredible cosmic power, but we also have rules and limits on how we can use it.
Rule one is straight forward (and a bit obvious):
We cannot change the past.
We can gain power from the past. By analysing it, understanding it, and learning from it. Still we are totally powerless to change what has already happened.
Rule two is related, but a bit less obvious:
We cannot change the present either.
Misunderstanding this rule can either lead to a lot of frustration (from trying to change something we can’t) or a lot of depression (from giving up feeling everything is out of our control).
So, let me try to clarify.
If we don’t like where we are right now. We cannot change that. We are already here.
However, we can change where we will be three seconds from now, or three days from now, or three years from now. The events and decisions that brought us to our current present have already been made. The actions we take now can only affect our future.
That is what our world changer power is. It is the power to change the future.
Rule three is the most interesting:
The farther in our future something is, the easier it is for us to change it.
Also, the farther in our future something is, the bigger the effect of the change we can make.
Let’s dig into rule three a bit.
Imagine that we are walking through a nice park when, somewhere nearby, an energetic golfer hits his golf ball high into the air.
The ball flies high, and it flies far. Somewhere in that ball’s future, is a painful meeting with our forehead.
(Painful for us. The ball doesn’t mind either way.)
We have the power to change that future meeting of the ball and our head. However, our ability to change that event is totally dependent on how far in the future it is and when we begin to act.
If we notice the player hitting the golf ball and think “That ball looks like it is coming this way”. Then we will have a lot of time, while the ball is flying, to casually step out of its path.
We can decide to do this quite calmly and casually, and we will still be long gone by the time the ball gets close.
However, what if we don’t notice the golf ball until it was only a moment away from hitting our head?
Well, we might be fast enough to turn, so that it hits the side of our head instead of our face. Or we might be able to raise our arms so that they get hit instead. But it is unlikely we will be able to avoid getting hurt in someway.
An interesting thing to notice is that, it is not when we see the ball that matters. It is when we start to move that makes the difference.
Thinking about how to respond to something is an important part of our response. If we act without thinking, there is a large risk that we end up making things worse than they already are.
However, if we spend too long thinking, then the future will become the present, and we will no longer be able to do anything to change it.
Okay, let’s look at another interesting example before we wrap up.
Have you seen the movie “Taken”?
Early on in the movie, the hero says something shocking while talking to his daughter on the phone. (There’s a line everyone remembers from the movie, that’s not the one we are talking about though).
While the hero’s daughter is on the phone talking to him, she sees kidnappers come into the house! As she watches, they grab her friend carry her away and start looking for her.
She is panicking as she describes this to her dad over the phone. It’s a big house, but they know she is there and are steadily searching for her. Meanwhile, her dad is thousands of miles away.
He gives her instructions over the phone. He tells her to go into the next room and hide under the bed.
While she is hiding, he says to her “Listen carefully, this is very important….”, you can practically hear his heart breaking as he says, “They are going to take you!”
This man is the hero of the movie. He has incredible abilities. And his only daughter’s life is at risk.
However, even with all his skill (or perhaps because of all this skill), he knows that what is about to happen is too close to the present. There is nothing he can do to stop it. The kidnappers will find his daughter and take her.
Instead, he is already looking into the future, the possible futures of the kidnappers and his daughter.
From the instant his daughter told him she was in trouble, he started to act. The instructions he gave, the devices he gathered, all were aimed at that point in future where his power would be stronger. Strong enough to overwhelm the kidnappers and return his daughter home safely.
As the movie continues, we find out the reason for each of those first actions he took. Those actions travel like guided missiles, to reach the point where they provide the power he needs, at the time when he needs them most.
We can imagine that, at the time of that phone call, he would have been emotionally battered from two sides.
On one side would have been the voice of the protector. “You have to do something! Don’t let them take her! She is our only daughter!”
On the other side would have been the voice of depression. “There is nothing you can do. She is too far away. If only she had listened to our advice before travelling!”
It couldn’t have been easy, but he was still able to focus his anger, his fear and his love, on the necessary points in the possible future. As a result, he was able to change it for the better
For Further Study
The Richest Man in Babylon – George S. Clason
Written in 1926, this book is one of the simplest, clearest books on how money works and how we can build impressive wealth. By taking the simple steps discussed in it, we will be able to build a future full of such wealth.
The Art of War – Sun Tzu
This is a really old book, written by a Chinese General 500 years before the Birth of Christ.
It is still one of the best tutorials on planning, preparing for and achieving victory. The book is focused on battle, but a lot of the principles apply many in other scenarios.
The risk with this book happens because it is a book about battle. For a while after reading it, we may begin to see everything as a battle. Life is struggle, not a battle.
We need to remind ourselves of that after reading this book (and then we need to read something happier 😊 ).
Dots and Crosses (aka “X and O”), Connect 4, Checkers, Chess
Board games (especially those that don’t use dice) are a great way for us to practice predicting what the impact of a move we make right now will be on our future turns. The better we get at this type of prediction, the better we get at the game. The games are listed above in order of difficulty. We can start from the first one, and work our way along the list as we get better and better.
I’m going to watch the film Taken again. This post was incredibly visual for me. I take too long thinking and get caught up within my thoughts . . .