In case you’ve not come across Alan Watts already, he was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker best known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a Western audience.

There are several perspectives of his, captured succinctly a cople of short videos which incorporate audio recordings from some of his lectures in the 60’s and 70’s. Instead of reading a long post from me today, I’d suggest you invest a few minutes listening to these instead:

What If Money Was No Object?

How would you really enjoy spending your life? If you do really like what you are doing, you can eventually become a master of it (for there is no other way), and then you’ll be able to get a good fee for it anyway :)

Choice

You do not know where your decisions come from.

“People worry about whether they have taken enough data into consideration before making a decision. But, if you think it through, you never could take enough data into account, as the data for a given situation is infinite. So what you do, is go through the motions… but worriers are people who think of all the variables beyond their control.

Choice is, the act of hesitation we make, before making a decision. It is a mental wobbling, and so we are always in a little bit of doubt as to whether we are making the right decisions, and lack a certain type of self confidence… and if you lack self-confidence, you will make mistakes through shear fumbling.

If you do have self confidence you may get away with doing entirely the wrong thing.

Through confidence you will be able to trust your won intuition, whether you decide that you can’t make a mistake, or if you don’t decide it - it’s true anyway.”

This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. The Essence of Alan Watts (1977)

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way