When we feel scattered and are scrambling for answers, it can feel as though our challenges are too great to overcome. If we are not careful, this negative feeling can give rise to a negative attitude which will block us from achieving the kind of success we are actually capable of.
A good place to start in avoiding this result is to understand why the scattered feeling arises in the first place. The answer is simple, if we insist on looking for answers everywhere except the place where they are, then we will be looking forever. The answers that we are looking for are actually right in front of us, in plain sight.
If we collect ourselves and bring the mind to the present moment even for a short time, we can see that our problems are a lot less daunting than we thought. Of course, if we construe our problems so that they extend endlessly into the past or the future then, by definition, we will never resolve them. But what is the specific problem that we are dealing with right now in this moment? Is that problem really as hard to solve as we are making it out to be?
If you did that simple exercise and realized that the so called problem in this very moment is something that you can deal with, then you’re on to something. This is the kind of realization that can change your life if you are willing to learn from it. The way to learn from that simple lesson is to take it to its logical conclusion: train yourself by joining a meditation retreat so that you have more of those productive moments and less of the scattered ones.