Each one of us is bombarded with information on a daily basis. Our wants, needs and desires are endless. The media has made a science of putting countless possibilities in front of us in the hope that some of them will resonate. With so many options, objects and desires, is it any wonder our minds become confused?
At any given moment, each of us has hundreds of ends we are trying to achieve, thousands of needs we are trying to satisfy, and millions of desires we�re trying to fulfill. Those ends, needs, and desires that get our attention for more than a few moments have a chance of becoming reality. The rest blur into the noise and are forgotten. They form a kind of nagging hum in the back of our minds that we sense as tension, but are unable to fully comprehend.
A few extraordinary individuals have been able to unclutter their minds long enough to apply their full energy to a single goal and achieve it, but what about the rest of us? What about those of us who don't want to spend our entire lives consumed by a single objective? What about those for whom Mt. Everest is just a mountain, who don't have a daring business idea, who aren't inspired to lead a national revolution or to write a great thesis, whose thirst for understanding can't lead them to new ad breathtaking discoveries, or whose artistic abilities are strictly terrestrial? If we cannot be consumed by a single, obvious, all consuming passion, then how are we to find our way through this awesome sea of possibilities? On which quests do we labor and which jewels do we reach for first?
We of mortal talent have many passions. We strive at the same time for many things. Our wish book overflows with desires, most small but each important to us: our children's happiness, to be valued in our careers, to express ourselves in various ways, to love and be loved in return, to satisfy curiosities and decorate our worlds with things that give us joy. The things we desire, though perhaps no one thing overpowers the rest, are no less beautiful, worthy, noble or important than the things which our childhood heroes achieved to great fanfare, yet each of these things requires focus to become reality.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of human minds are incapable of sifting through so many ideas and achieving completely ordered focus. It is not possible for the majority of us to achieve the clarity of those for whom one objective eclipses all others, and so we toil every day a little bit on each. Our consistency depends on the accidents of memory and circumstance. As a consequence many things go undone. The list of hopes and dreams fulfilled, though still impressive for many, is always outweighed by an even larger list of hopes and dreams left unfulfilled due to lack of attention and consistent effort.
In the summer of 1998 I tinkered with a system I hoped would offset some of the limitations of my own mediocre mind and help me see a greater proportion of my hopes and dreams become real. My little experiment succeeded beyond my wildest imagination. So much so that I was approached by a few acquaintances to show them how the system worked.
It's been 10 years since my experiment began. I believe in what I've created and I want more than anything to share what I have learned along the way. This book is my attempt to do just that. The fundamentals are so simple that most readers will discard them out of hand and walk away. I frankly share the basics of my system with at least a few dozen people every year and few ever give them a second thought. Those who do listen discover that the simplicity of the system obscures a labyrinth of deeper principles and lessons that take hours to explain and would take a lifetime to master. I will do my best to document those insights here. At the very least, my children and grandchildren may benefit from what I learned almost by accident years ago. My hope is that they will be the better for it.
E-mail: daryl@cumen.com
