One of the 12 life-changing books I shared last week is The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer.
Michael A. Singer was a college student who started practicing mindfulness and yoga to deal with the chatter in his mind and ended up as the founder and CEO of a billion-dollar software company.
It’s a fantastic, real-life story worth a read. At the same time, it’s an intriguing story.
Popular success stories depict heroes that overcome a lot of obstacles and involve a lot of plot twists. That’s not the case with the Surrender Experiment.
An Intriguing Life Story
As a college student, Singer is disturbed by the chatter in his mind and starts practicing meditation and yoga to quite that voice. At the same time, he follows his intuition to buy a personal computer when they first came to market. He starts programming as a hobby.
He acts upon the opportunities that are presented to him such as accepting a teaching position in college and buying a construction contractor license when they were offered for a low price.
Along the way, he keeps practicing meditation and yoga, and he keeps letting go of his limiting beliefs and emotions such as fear and worries.
His life is almost magical. All he has to do is to act upon the next opportunity that is presented to him. It is almost too good to be true. Singer’s life looks as if he succeeded without any effort.
Life is simple. We make it complicated. We keep creating problems if we don’t have any.
What is the secret of the effortless success of Michael A. Singer?
Imagine you stretch your budget to buy a powerful computer. After a few days, your new computer slows down. It freezes frequently, and some operations take significantly longer than you expect.
What’s going on? Why does this new, expensive, powerful computer perform so poorly?
When you inspect the issue, you realize that you’ve installed a lot of programs that you didn’t actually need. You start uninstalling them one by one. The performance improves with every program that you uninstall.
Once you have uninstalled the unnecessary programs that you have installed, you realize that your computer also came with a lot of bloatware. You uninstall those programs as well.
Finally, you end up with a system with only the software you need. Your computer starts to perform as you expected. It boots fast, and it processes complex processes without any delays.
Your Mind Is Like a PC Filled with Bloatware
It’s a familiar scenario, isn’t it? It’s easy for us to understand that the performance of a computer decreases when it’s bloated with unnecessary programs. Yet, the same is true for our own minds.
We fill our own minds with a lot of useless programs. Moreover, our minds come with a lot of programs that aren’t that useful in this day and age. All of those useless programs, emotions, and chatter are slowing down our minds. They blur our vision.
We don’t see the opportunities in front of us. We can’t make the simplest decisions. We have a difficult time concentrating on the easiest tasks. Sitting in front of a computer and working for a few hours becomes a torture. All of that because of the bloatware in our minds.
Our minds are powerful machines that are slowed down by unnecessary programs that consume its processing power. Imagine how powerful your mind would be if you only ran a few required programs.
Uninstalling Bloatware from Our Minds
Michael A. Singer uninstalled all of those bloatware from his mind with this mindfulness, meditation, and yoga practice.
This doesn’t happen overnight, but every time you let go of a program, your mental clarity increases a little. Those changes add up over time, and we end up with a robust system.
Your hardware is already powerful. Most of the time, the problem isn’t the hardware. It’s the software. And the problem isn’t the lack of software. It’s the excess of software.
Mental Clarity and Intuition
As Michael A. Singer improved his mental clarity, his intuition improved as well. He was able to see and take advantage of the opportunities in front of him.
As he let go of his worries and desires, he was able to make the correct decisions. He was able to focus on the work at hand and let go of his distractions. As a result, success was inevitable.
It’s a Process
Make no mistake, I don’t claim that you can let go of all of your programs easily. It takes time, and it’s a process.
When it comes to self-improvement, I believe in 1% improvements. Those 1% improvements add up over time and produce excellent results.
Letting go is a simple process. Yet, it’s significantly hard for most of us. I could tell you “just let go,” but I also refer you to my favorite book on the topic: Letting Go by David Hawkins. For a definition of the letting go process by Hawkins, please read this post.
Conclusion
Our minds are capable of amazing feats. We fail to accomplish those feats because we fail to use the full capacity of our minds.
We can’t use the full capacity of our minds because most of its capacity is wasted on useless programs. We can boost our mind power by removing those useless programs.
It doesn’t happen overnight like uninstalling software from a computer, but we can make significant progress over time by practicing consistently.
Burak BilginSoftware developer with a Ph.D. and 15 years of experience. I write daily on personal development and life lessons. Sign up to my email newsletter to receive a weekly overview of my latest content on personal development and life lessons.