This short and humble book will be priceless to an open-minded reader. It discusses how to cultivate present-moment awareness, how to focus on process rather than product, how to make haste slowly, and many other practices that are increasingly indispensable in our haste-filled, results-oriented modern era.
Several years ago I heard an unforgettable story from the owner of a language school in Santiago, Chile. She told me about a disgruntled customer who had been taking Spanish classes for weeks, but wasn't getting any better. This student complained, loudly, "I paid my money. Where is my Spanish?"
This story stuck with me for well over a decade because it's a metaphor for how people confuse buying something with learning something, confuse "taking a class" with actually learning a domain and developing a sincere practice of that domain. We've productized so much of life in the modern era that people think they can buy language fluency off the shelf, like a 3-pack of underwear.
This book is the antidote.
The author himself writes "there are not that many ideas in this book" but the ones he shares are essential. He's given readers a generous gift, and I thank him for it.
[A quick affiliate link to Amazon for those readers who would like to support my work here: if you purchase your Amazon products via any affiliate link from this site, or from my sister site Casual Kitchen, I will receive a small affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you!]
Pair with:
Timothy Galwey: The Inner Game of Tennis
[Readers, what follows are just my notes and quotes from the text. They are here to help me order my thinking and better remember what I read. Feel free to continue, but also feel free to stop right here and return to your lives.]
Notes:
Introduction:
xiiiff "...life itself is nothing more than one long practice session... life is a journey that requires and even forces us--either consciously or unconsciously--to master one skill after another." On the idea that when we were young we mastered skills one step at a time, without a sense of struggle, via practice. On learning skills while experiencing inner peace and joy in the process--this is in fact a skill itself [a metaskill] that requires constant practice.
xv On focusing on "the process of achieving" rather than "having" a goal; when we see people who do this, we can see that they have self-discipline, focus, patience, and self-awareness; "With this skill we are masters of the energy we expend in life, and without it, we are victims of our own unfocused and constantly changing efforts, desires, and directions." "This book is about how learning how to live in the present moment and becoming process-oriented centers us on this magical path and brings us a wonderful sense of patience with both ourselves and our lives as we learn to enjoy our journey." [I think I'd add a couple of commas to that sentence, or maybe break it up a bit, but his insight still stands.]
Chapter 1: The Learning Begins
1ff The author noticed over the course of his life, as he develops his musical skills, how his attitude towards practice changed radically: he went from disliking practice as a child (to the point of even giving up entirely on different musical instruments), to enjoying the total immersion of practice, and seeing it as an activity to escape the daily pressures of life. He begins to understand that all life is practice, not just practice literally in the music sense (or the golf swing sense), but all things--even handling a tight monthly budget or dealing with your work schedule--are forms of "practice." [I like to think of these daily things (budgeting, dealing with a work schedule,, etc) as "kata": they must be done, and the long term results of doing them well will result in other significant successes. They matter, so you might as well do them with some presence and some sincerity. "Perform your kata with absolute focus and utmost seriousness."]
4ff The author observes golfers taking up the sport and then playing golf for many years, but playing poorly--and at the same time being clueless about how to fix their problems; "...they were repeating the same lack of fundamental skills over and over again and expecting different results." They didn't know how it should look or what they looked like when they swung a club, etc.
6 [Interesting point here on taking up a new domain, and discovering something about your primary domain from that new domain] "What I learned from golf was that all my failures in music had stemmed from my lack of understanding the proper mechanics of practicing, of the process of picking a goal, whatever that may be, and applying a steady effort toward achieving it. Perhaps most important, I realized that I had learned how to accomplish just that without the frustration and anxiety usually associated with such an activity."
6-7 On the practice mindset that the author equates to self-discipline and self-awareness, it "gives us patience with ourselves, with others, and with life itself.
7ff The author gets into a section here about multitasking and all of the curses and agitations that come from multitasking; he contrasts it with the "practicing mind" which is quiet. How our minds are all over the place, without our permission, multitasking, and overflowing with unrelated thoughts. Also the author uses a metaphor here of a chariot rider [the self] with four horses [the monkey mind] running in all different directions.
10 [Money quote here] "If you are not in control of your thoughts, then you are not in control of yourself. Without self-control, you have no real power, regardless of whatever else you accomplish. If you were not aware of the thoughts that you think in each moment, then you are the rider with no reins, with no power over where you are going. You cannot control what you are not aware of. Awareness must come first."
11 The author discusses how he started out writing a book that would help readers "eliminate the struggles of learning to play a musical instrument," but he realized that there was a meta-idea in here "about my outlook on processing life" that could be translated to multiple domains--even the domain of learning the process of how to write a book.
12ff He notices over the course of his twenties how we would take up an activity, buy all the proper clothes, join groups or whatever [the finger pointing to the moon is not the moon! The things surrounding the thing are not the thing itself]. He'd begin the activity with commitments to be steadfast, but then see his enthusiasm taper off: he would lose interest, it would get difficult, and then he would make excuses, and eventually he would sort of let the whole thing drop. And then he'd do the same thing with some other activity, and another. [If you think about it, this is a metaphor for most of us in modernity: we work for years to make money just to die next to a large pile of all the stuff we bought but never really, truly used--that dusty piano or guitar we never really practiced, all those books we bought but never read, all those classical music CDs that we bought but never listened to, etc.] Then he began taking piano lessons as an adult which "yielded a whole new set of advantages and disadvantages over studying as a child" [More on this in a later chapter the author tells us]. Finally he started employing some of the concepts he had learned about Eastern philosophies.
14 On good practice manifesting itself with no stress, no internal questioning of when will a goal be reached, the fact that we're doing something difficult or engaging in a difficult learning process disappears.
14-5 Finally the author changes careers and becomes a concert piano technician and piano restorer, work that is repetitious, tedious and monotonous, the kind of work that "if you do not possess at least a minimal level of discipline and patience, your anxiety and frustration will soar." This forced him to develop an ability to get lost in the process of doing something.
Chapter 2: Process, Not Product
17ff [The first few pages of this chapter are a perfect description of the difference between a "regular person" (in the deeply pejorative Bowtied Bull/Wall Street Playboys sense of the term) and a person who is volitional, agency-based and goal-directed. It's highly instructive, and it is desperately important to choose the latter instead of the former.] The author describes his golf class, where the teacher teaches elements of the swing and asks the students to practice it until the next week's lesson. Almost no one practiced! The author, by contrast, explains to the reader the various things that he did to integrate what he was taught: he takes notes in the car immediately after the class, he practices each day before the next week's class, etc. He approached the entire thing with a game plan, and also with improvement in mind, but also with a mindset to take what he was taught and groove it. [If you learn something and then don't touch it again until the following week, you will lose everything between the one lesson and the next! Anyone who knows anything about the brain's "forgetting curve," how the human mind works, etc., would already know this. It should be basic stuff, but the awful truth is people confuse taking a class with the process of putting in effort to learn.]
20 The author explains the value of "present moment attention," practicing without an end goal in mind, just to work on the fundamentals he's been taught, and to apply his attention to that and nothing more. He finds this practicing mind state to be relaxing [and if you can frame it that way it is!] "I found that immersing myself in the process of practicing shut off all the tensions of the day and all the thoughts of what had to get done tomorrow. It kept my mind in the present, out of the past and the future."
21 On understanding the mechanics of good practice and shifting the intended goal away from the product (in this case being great at golf), and directing the goal towards the process of reaching that goal. "We erroneously think that there is a magical point that we will reach and then we will be happy. We look at the process of getting there as almost a necessary nuisance we have to go through in order to get to our goal." [It is interesting to think how shifting from "a goal" to "a process of reaching that goal" is in some ways a minor mental distinction, a minor reframe, but at the same time there is a huge, yawning abyss between these two things. What a paradox.]
22 Semantic discussion on the difference between practice and learning: practice implies the presence of awareness and will, while learning does not. "When we practice something, we are involved in the deliberate repetition of a process with the intention of reaching a specific goal." The author uses the words "deliberate" and "intention" to indicate the difference between active practice and passive learning. See for example growing up in a house with constant bickering where you learn that behavior passively. "Practice encompasses learning, but not the other way around."
22-3 On the various paradoxes of the phrase "process not product": "When you focus on the process, the desired product takes care of itself with fluid ease. When you focus on the product, you immediately begin to fight yourself and experience boredom, restlessness, frustration, and impatience with the process. The reason for this is not hard to understand. When you focus your mind on the present moment, on the process of what you were doing right now, you are always where you want to be and where you should be. All your energy goes into what you are doing. However, when you focus your mind on where you want to end up, you are never where you are, and you exhaust your energy with unrelated thoughts instead of putting it into what you are doing."
23-4 On losing attachment to your goal in order to be present; back to the "goal shift" idea [shifting the goal from the result/product to the process of reaching that result]; this causes all pressure to drop away, also on how mistakes stop being barriers when we aren't thinking about the goal but rather remain present in the process; there are no mistakes or judging, you're just learning and doing, "executing the activity, observing the outcome, and adjusting yourself."
29ff On school and how it is grades-focused, which is a product, and not process-focused. Also a long story about a music theory class that he took that had tests that were given with too short a time to complete the work, this is sort of peripheral to the central idea but it's to show that the other students were less interested in what they learned from the class but more interested "not letting this class ruin my grade."
35ff On Japanese manufacturing during the 1970s; not just in the Auto industry but also in the piano manufacturing industry. "The Japanese were very process-oriented in their lives and work." Somehow he then migrates the discussion here to criticizing using credit cards, arguing that credit card debt works on "the premise of product before process."
40 "In summary, creating the practicing mind comes down to a few simple rules:
* Keep yourself process-oriented.
* Stay in the present.
* Make the process the goal and use the overall goal as a rudder to steer your efforts.
* Be deliberate, have an intention about what you want to accomplish, and remain aware of that intention."
40ff Finally, on developing the Observer within you [the book The Inner Game of Tennis would call this Self 2, Eckhart Tolle would call it the state of presence]. Also, good quote here: "The problem with patience and discipline is that developing each of them requires both of them."
Chapter 3: It's How You Look at It
42 "At what point in a flower's life, from seed to full bloom, does it reach perfection?" It is always perfect--as we'll see the author argue in a few pages.
43ff On idealizing some endpoint of perfection in everything we do; quoting the movie The Natural when the main character says he could have broken every record in the book, and his childhood sweetheart responds "and then?" On ideal images of perfection that the media shows us, that we hold in our minds and that "distort our perspective of where we are on the road to happiness." If we use them for inspiration this is beneficial, but if they're used as a measuring device/comparison device it's unhealthy; see for example comparing yourself to a world-class musician.
48 The author returns to the koan about the flower: when it's a seed it is exactly what it's supposed to be, a seed. When it first sprouts that's exactly what it's supposed to do, etc. "Do you think that a flower seed sits in the ground and says, 'This is going to take forever. I have to push all this dirt out of my way just to get to the surface and see the sun. Every time it rains or somebody waters me, I'm soaking wet and surrounded by mud. When do I get to bloom? That's when I'll be happy; that's what everybody will be impressed with me.'" [I often joke with my wife about how often the solution to most problems comes from fixing our crappy attitude... and this is a flower with a really crappy attitude.]
49ff On using the flower as a metaphor for yourself: "you experience a tremendous relief from all the fictitious, self-imposed pressures and expectations that only slow your progress." On wanting to get to "full bloom" and skip the rest of it, think of this as your false self pulling you into the future, taking you out of the present.
52 On the paradox of identifying when we are in a present moment state, because when we become aware of it we are pulled out of it. [One could take this even further and talk about how we can only know when we are not in a present moment state, being in a present moment state requires, paradoxically, a lack of metacognition and a lack of meta-awareness.]
54-5 Interesting comment here from the author on how watching people play a video game lets us observe someone else in a state of present moment awareness; if you take even a brief moment to look at the score it breaks you out of the present, the player is totally focused on what they are doing in that moment.
55-6 The author asks why we have more difficulty maintaining this state while doing work-related activities; on how present moment awareness is much easier with recreational activities; to him the distinction is in the different prejudgment we make of the activity, that we've made a conscious decision that it's not work; he counsels readers to temporarily suspend our definition of the word "work" when referring to our daily vocation. "The knowledge that we prejudge our activities and then place them into one of the two categories [work and recreation] is very powerful. It demonstrates to us that nothing is really work or play. We make an activity into work or play by our judgments."
59ff The author then recommends, when you're doing a task you would rather not do, to practice staying present-moment-oriented and process-oriented for just the first half hour of the task; don't go into the past or into the future but just stay present with what you're doing. Also don't try to enjoy it either, because that brings struggle into your effort. If you were going to mow the lawn, mow the lawn. [This is exactly what I do for writing, I sit down and usually it takes about 20 to 30 minutes to enter any kind of present moment state; readers can see this idea discussed further in Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's wonderful book Flow.] Also on developing the ability to go into the present moment and applying it to emotionally-laden activities and thus negating their power over you. "The practicing mind puts you in control of even the most difficult situations and allows you to work with less effort and negative emotion at any activity. This produces inner peace, and you accomplish more with less effort."
Chapter 4: Creating the Habits We Desire
63ff "By now, you should notice--or, shall we say, you should be aware of--several themes running through this book. One of these themes is awareness itself. You cannot change what you are unaware of." [I always appreciate when an author reaches directly out to the reader to tell him what exactly he's trying to do.] On how most of us are completely disconnected from our thoughts, we just "have" them. On becoming an observer of our thoughts and actions, like an instructor watching a student, staying non-judgmental non-emotional, just observing; also not imposing expectations, which are product- or results-focused.
64ff "This disconnection from our thoughts and actions is a way of thinking that we have learned during our lives, and one that takes away all our real power. We must unlearn this approach to life. What we are really talking about here is a habit." On the interpolation between habits and practice, what we practice becomes a habit. "Our minds are going to practice certain behaviors whether or not we are aware of them, and whatever we practice is going to become habit." [I can't think of anything less volitional than unknowingly practicing yourself into a bad habit.]
66ff On knowing specifically what it is that you wish to achieve, intentionally repeating those motions, and doing so without emotions or judgment. Interesting factoid here on sports psychologists stating that repeating a particular motion 60 times a day over 21 days forms a new habit that is ingrained in your mind, this can be used to change a golf swing for example.
69ff On using a trigger to start the creation process of a new habit, a wake-up call or a mental bell ring that alerts you that you are in a situation where you want to change one response for another; the trigger is meant to bring you into a present moment, non-judgmental mental state. Starting with the pre-shot routine [the example the author's using here is golf, this is an analogy for whatever activity we are working on]. Note also a useful insight here on golfers who practice their own pre-shot routines over and over again until they're so natural and comfortable they become a place to mentally retreat to under stress or duress. [An analogy here in tennis is rearranging your strings for a few moments after a point.]
71ff Now on to the trigger. The author gives an example of a golfer tugging on his earlobe or on the shoulder of his T-shirt; or an example if you're trying to stop watching TV: the trigger could be the act of picking up the remote, which bring you into a present awareness state to recognize "here comes the impulse to waste time in front of a television." [This section of the book would benefit from a deeper explanation of different types of triggers, what a trigger is supposed to do or look like, different examples of triggers for a range of domains. I think also it would be useful to have more discussion of how to go about "installing" that trigger once you've chosen it. If I were editing this book I would ask the author to flesh this out a little bit more.]
Chapter 5: Perception Change Creates Patience!
75ff The author's mother reminds him: "You need to keep reviewing these ideas so that you can hang onto their clarity and perspective. Otherwise, life steals them away." In other words, we fall back into our default habits of unmindfulness, non-awareness. [Unless you continue to groove a habit, you're going to lose it. There's sort of a default on mindfulness and undirectedness imposed upon us by modernity at all times, and you have to push against this, resist it.]
76-7 Interesting quote here where once again the author is meta about his book: "There are not that many ideas in this book... I wanted my book to be one that you could pick up at any time and open to any page and start reading. I wanted my readers to be able to remember it's a few ideas without much effort and without the need to flip back through pages to find them. I wanted you to realize that we keep coming back to the same few solutions to all the problems we feel we have, and to begin to understand that life isn't as complicated as we had thought." [He's right: all you have to do is practice mindfulness, gratitude, patience (often you have to practice forbearance too), and life becomes far more endurable and makes much more sense. Of course our egos fight against the idea that these answers can be so simple (because if they were that simple we would have already figured it all out). So the meta-idea is to quiet your ego, or at the least chuckle at it when it makes retarded claims like this.]
77ff On the virtue of patience: the author flips it and describes impatience, the opposite state, where you're not in the present moment, not staying process-oriented, and usually you're experiencing anxiety as well. [Being patient doesn't look like anything. Just like being mindful or practicing forbearance doesn't look like anything. It's the absence of a thing.]
79 "The first step toward patience is to become aware of when your internal dialogue is running wild and dragging you with it. If you are not aware of this when it is happening, which is probably most of the time, you are not in control... [again the implicit idea here is that you have no volition, no agency, unless you are paying attention and observing yourself] To free yourself from this endless and exhausting cycle, you must step back and notice the real you, the Observer who just quietly watches all this drama as it unfolds. As you practice staying in the present, you will become more aware of the difference between the real you and your ego's internal dialogue..."
80 On letting go of the idea of reaching a point of perfection in anything--including in having patience itself! Again the metaphor of the flower here; also the sailor considering the horizon as a point that he must reach--in other words he experiences eternal frustration thinking about a horizon that is unreachable rather than staying in the moment-by-moment work of keeping the ship sailing. Other metaphorical examples like the never-ending trap of wanting more money, or the "I'll be happy when X happens" trap.
82ff Very interesting story here where the author shares his piano playing journey: when he was 19, he wrote down all of the things he wanted to accomplish over the next five-year period, this was born out of a frustrating passage in a certain piece of music that he didn't think he could ever play; the author felt he wasn't progressing fast enough, so he wrote down all of the criteria that he felt would be necessary to get to what he thought would be an "acceptable" level of musicianship. Then, three years later, he's having another difficult practice session and decides to quit playing for the evening... and a crumpled slip of paper falls out of one of his music books. It was his five-year plan that he had completely forgotten about--and he realizes to his shock that he had done everything on the list in just three years, and further he had done things musically that he couldn't even imagine back when he wrote the list down in the first place. And yet he didn't feel any different, he felt no happier, he didn't feel like he was any better as a musician. "My horizon was moving away from me." He realizes there is no point of musical excellence out there that would free him from the feeling that he needed to get better, that he needed more. [This is just like money, the same exact fucking problem!] He experiences a type of epiphany, that he would be involved in an "infinite study" of music that would never end. "I became patient with my progress. Not only did I stop looking at my progress, but I stopped looking for my progress altogether."
86ff The author walks through two examples here of acquiring things without effort: self-playing organs and credit cards; in both cases you acquire something without earning the privilege of that thing. Both are examples of making the thing the goal rather than the process toward the thing.
91ff On acknowledging the goal, but then letting go of it and putting your energy "into the practice and process that will move you toward that goal." On shifting the goal from playing a piece perfectly to learning the play the piece.
Chapter 6: The Four "S" Words
95ff This chapter explains techniques to integrate the practicing mindset into your everyday life. The four words are simplify, small, short and slow and they are interrelated; basically you break any task down into simple, small and short steps, doing each small step slowly. The author gives an example from his own field where he performs a very busy day's work slowly and deliberately: he finds he actually performed all his tasks in less time; on the time dilation effect he experienced; on the present-moment awareness he had, etc. [This sounds a lot like Baltasar Gracián's quote "make haste slowly." Note here the time dilation effect that happens when you practice presence. This is a very strange and striking experience, sometimes it can take the form of making time go much more quickly than you think, sometimes the reverse.]
Chapter 7: Equanimity and DOC
105ff The author argues that equanimity "is a virtue worth every effort to develop," defining it as being undisturbed by moment-to-moment ups and downs experienced in daily life, that it comes from the art of non-judgment, "non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue of our mind." On how we are judging everything all the time, mostly unconsciously, from the moment we wake up ("I slept great!"), all day long; many of our decisions are based on judgment, and involves comparison to an ideal. "There is always an imagined ideal item, experience, or circumstance that allows us and even compels us to pass judgment."
107ff Further on having emotional investment or emotional reactions to judgments; on how this hinders you from thinking clearly; the author gives an example of flying a plane and practicing stressful situations until there's no emotion whatsoever--just training. He gives an example of a pilot and a control tower talking through a dangerous situation without any emotion at all. "It was an incredible conversation, and one that demonstrated that you are at your best when you are not operating under the influence of emotions and unconscious judgment making."
110 On becoming aware "of exactly when we are involved in the process of judging. Since most of us judge all the time, we don't have to wait long for our first chance to observe ourselves participating in this exhausting act. And then we have a special opportunity: the chance to meet a quiet, nonjudging presence at the heart of all our beings."
110-111 [Money quote here]: "If you are aware of anything you are doing, that implies that there are two entities involved: one who is doing something, and one who is aware of or observing you do it. If you are talking to yourself, you probably think you were doing the talking. That seems reasonable enough, but who is listening to you talk to yourself? Who is aware that you are observing the process of an internal dialogue? Who is the second party who was aware that you are aware? The answer is your true self. The one who was talking is your ego or personality. The one who is quietly aware is who you really are: the Observer. The more closely you become aligned with the quiet Observer, the less you judge. Your internal dialogue begins to shut down, and you become more detached about the various external stimuli that come at you all day long. You begin to actually view your internal dialogue with an unbiased (and sometimes amused) perspective."
111 "When you are aligned with your true self, you are immune to other people's behaviors. When you feel that someone is acting inappropriately toward you, that feeling comes from a judgment of the ego. From the perspective of the Observer, you find yourself just watching that person's ego rant and rave while you listen quietly and unaffected."
112 The Observer is always experiencing tranquility and equanimity; when you're engaging your practicing mind in any activity you evoke alignment with the Observer; remember the ego is subjective, judging everything, including itself, and it is never content where it is; the Observer is objective, and it is here in the present moment, not judging anything as good or bad, it simply sees the circumstance or action as being.
112ff How do we become aligned with the Observer? The author suggests meditation to help you become more aware of the silent Observer within you, and to quiet your mind and reduce your attachment to the external world. "The benefits of meditation cannot be described; they must be experienced. I recommend it for everyone."
113ff The author also offers a method of aligning with the Observer that he calls DOC, which stands for do, observe, correct. This works best with a sport or a physical activity. Discussion here of American archery teams compared to Asian archery teams: the Americans focused on the score and result of their shots, whereas the Asian teams absorbed themselves in the process of executing the technique that leads up to releasing the shot, viewing the result "with an almost detached indifference." [In the book Zen In the Art of Archery, the phrase "it shot" is used to describe an arrow released in this way, an interesting way to put it that captures this detached non-attachment to outcome.]
114ff With DOC there is an action, an observation of the result, and then corrections, with no emotion in any of this and no judgments, the experience is simple and stress-free. The author notes that US sporting events basically no one has fun unless they are winning.
115ff On applying DOC to your personal actions: for example, if you worry too much, first of all, notice yourself worrying (this is the "do" portion), and then observe the behavior you wish to change (the observation separates yourself from the actual worrying), and then release yourself from the emotions (this is the "correction" portion) and look at the problem from the Observer's standpoint. "It's tiring at first. Remember, you are breaking an unwanted habit and how you deal with problems. The old habit put most of your energy into fretting and very little of it into solving the problem. In a short time, the new habit of DOC will be a natural part of how you operate."
116 On distinguishing "evaluating" something with "judging" it. You can't judge something if you haven't first evaluated it. Then with the DOC process your observation is where you evaluate whether you're heading towards your goal or not, and then skip the judgment part, just jump immediately to correct, and adjust.
117 "...nothing is more satisfying than quieting the squawking voice of your frightened or insulted ego. In those moments, you realize that you really are separate from that angry or fearful voice and that you truly are the captain of your own ship and crew." [What's striking about this statement is that this is the single most volitional thing a person can do... and they can do it with a simple thought, a simple instruction to themselves to "observe." Astounding.]
117ff The author then goes through an example of a major piano restoration job he had agreed to do and had scheduled out weeks of time to do it, but the client canceled at the last minute, leaving him out thousands of dollars of income; he walks through how he saw the anger and frustration coming ["Do"], he observed his internal dialogue with detachment ["Observe"], and then corrected his reaction to the dialogue ["Correct"]. "When I completed the DOC cycle in this manner, the anxiety subsided and the internal dialogue quieted." He also describes how these feelings might return, so he would repeat the DOC cycle again, correcting himself without judging the "performance" [that is, the performance of his self-control] as good or bad.
Chapter 8: Teach and Learn from Children
124ff On how children and adults have a different concept of time: a week from now seems like forever from now to a child. Adults feel like life and time go by too fast, that there's too much to do and too little time. On children seeing that there is today and that's it, living in the present moment, this is just how they are, it's not really by their own choice.
125 On piano practice, children don't see the point because they don't have a concept in the future of playing well and enjoying this ability, and that's why they get impatient; adults do understand this future idea, and thus the adult's patience comes from the precisely opposite reason: we do have a concept of what it would be like to play well, yet this is the very reason that we get impatient [!!] because we can't play well enough soon enough.
126-7 A good reminder here at the author discusses talking to his daughters about things that they perhaps are struggling with, but waiting until time has passed so they're not in a state of being "overwhelmed by the emotions that were present during the particular incident." Holy cow is a good reminder: you want to sort out something right then, but you have to wait until the people you discuss it with (including yourself!) are less emotionally labile. The next day or a few hours later you can be more detached, more solution-oriented, more agency-based, you can listen, you can work out things. The author goes over an example about pogo sticks that is cute: showing how his kid got through a period of instant gratification as the author deferred a discussion on it for two weeks and then brought it up later; the daughter was able to see that she didn't really want the thing in the first place.
Chapter 9: Your Skills Are Growing
133ff "What I have presented in this book is not new knowledge by any means. It is centuries old and is relearned by each new generation." When we are present we experience life directly as it really is, rather than through filters of anticipation (thinking about the future) or through analysis and judgment (thinking about the past).
134ff On frustrations that we experience as we begin to practice living in the present moment. "These are, however, just the result of holding an imaginary ideals of how quickly you should master any new endeavor that you undertake." On unlearning the mindset of being the best, being an A student. "...this mindset is nothing more than a habit" that we can replace with the habit of present-mindedness.
136ff The author talks about how when societies get to a level of abundance--basically where they switch from asking whether there's dinner to asking what's for dinner--and on societies that go through this have a pretty mediocre record in terms of choosing between meaningless self-indulgence and expanding spiritual awareness. He then asks the reader to think about the things that are really important over the course of your life compared to the things that seemed important at the time, like the things that you acquired that have no significance to you now even though "getting it consumed your thoughts at the time." The thing and the desire for acquisition are just to fill a void inside us: most of us are aware of this fact on some level, but we get distracted from it repeatedly; thus a general solution here is to be careful about what you expose yourself to in media. [Or you could argue more broadly, be careful what you expose yourself to in modernity in the broadest sense. See for example Thich Nhat Hahn's comments in The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching on paying careful attention to exactly what "nutriments"--both intellectual and comestible--that you allow to enter your body or mind.]
To Read/Resources:
Thomas M. Sterner: It's Just a Thought
Thomas M. Sterner: Fully Engaged
See also Tom Sterner's website as well as a link to his podcasts