717. The "Don't Have To Do" List And The 'Single Process'

This is one is just too easy. So easy, that it is perhaps one of the most underestimated processes around:

It could be called the Anti-Prep-Trap-Proc #1:

 "Make a list of things you DON'T have to do!"

In the short run, if this process is being thoroughly done and enough time is taken to endulge in the feelings of NOT having to do such and such, this process can pull out a person out of a otherwise hopeless stuck present-time condition.

In the long run, this process could be mistaken as a 'single-process' nirvana-maker, if such a thing would exist.

The reason seems clear enough: if there wouldn't be any 'unfinished business' in one's life anymore, there wouldn't be attachments or compulsions left either.

First of all, it is debatable whether this process pulls a person far enough out of the web of fixed ideas in order to be able to handle 'things that HAVE to be done'. The latter ideas are usually tied up in constructs of their own ('GPMs') and need special handlings.

More importantly, however, the myth of a 'single-process' to reach liberation is just that: a myth.

Typically, such a myth is propagated by people who are stuck in Prep-Trap 1. They extrapolate their wins on their current process into the future and conclude that once they have finished it everything 'must' be OK.

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings!

Speculations such as Dennis Stephens' nirvana-claims in TROM, or expecting to reach enlightenment by sitting long enough in  front of a wall, are quickly being echoed by anyone who had a success in a particular process.

Now, it may be that someone 'reaches xyz' while sitting in front of a wall. However, whatever he did was just what he did close to the time when it happened.

This way, and far too often, someone starts writing a book on  'How to be a successfull such-or-such'. The guy looks back in time at what he had done before winning the lottery. This approach is basically correct, of course. However, more often than not, the success author then takes an arbitrary ("I was playing tennis everyday") and assigns 'cause' to it.

The logical conclusion becomes "Play tennis everyday, and you, too, will win in the lottery!". An amazing number of utterly worthless 'self-help' books are churned out this way every year. Enough to make rain-forest-saviors weeping in their sleep, anyway.

In any case, a Being expands gradually before it can become (again) limitless.

Even the best process can advance freedom only to point where other conditions are holding back further development.

The question of what processes could constitute a basic set of processes for this purpose is an interesting but also perhaps a purely academic question.

A process for checking off obsolete goals, duties, plans, and games would positively belong to such a set.

Now, I just realized that I really don't have to do all this writing and will take a nap instead!

Max over and out.

(don't worry. Max will be back!).