 It's the voice in the head that creates a large part of your unhappiness. And that's quite a realization. And that applies to small situations, it applies to bigger situations too. And some people live with a very critical and very negative voice in their head for years. They criticize themselves continuously, some of them, or they criticize continuously other people and situations. There's always something wrong with me or with situations. Or they tell themselves stories of how bad my life is, how unfairly I have been treated by life and other people. And I wasn't given a chance and now it's all over. There's no point in even trying to hold now to carry very unhappy stories around in their head. And they call that my life. There are not that many people who are really happy with their lives. There are more people around who are unhappy with their lives. My life didn't go the way it was meant to go. It didn't go the way I was expecting it to go. Many things went wrong. So people carry unhappy stories and they derive their sense or identity from the unhappy story. Not realizing that it's an unhappy story, they call it me and my life. So nobody has pointed out to them that it does not have to be that way. You can become aware of the stories that you're telling yourself, the stories that give you your sense of your unhappy sense of self, and realize that these are certain thoughts. I call it thoughts that create what we call your life situation. Your life situation, your past and your so-called future. And there's no life situation that is not problematic. Everybody has their set of problems. Every life situation has its difficulties and its problems. If it's not one thing, it's another. You cannot go through life without experiencing almost continuously my problems or the work that I prefer is challenges. You cannot go through life without continuously experiencing challenges, either of interpersonal relationship challenges, close relationship challenges, health challenges, physical challenges, financial challenges, professional work challenges, living situation challenges. There's always something that goes wrong somewhere. So that's only to be expected. But this does not have to evolve into an unhappy story of me and my life. So you are able to differentiate between the story of my life, my so-called life, my life situation, and life. So in the power of now, I write about the importance of distinguishing between what is your life situation, which includes all your problems and your past and all those things. That's fine, that exists. But in addition to your life situation, which exists in time, past and future, there's something more vital and I call that your life. Now, your life situation, as I said, exists in time, but your life is now. So if your attention moves into the present moment, it's a little bit like waking up out of this dream of continuous thinking, useless thinking, not constructive thinking, useless thinking, that tells you how unhappy you are. So that kind of thinking that creates an unhappy, fictitious mental entity that you think is you, useless thinking. You step out of that, which is almost like a dream of hypnotic trance of useless thinking. You step out of that and suddenly it's a bit like somebody who is waking up from a dream and this is why we use spiritually, we use the term awakening. It's used in many traditions, spiritual awakening. You wake up out of this stream of thinking into the present moment. So you suddenly become alert. And a moment ago you were still thinking about how awful your life is. That's your life situation. Maybe it is awful, but that's an interpretation. That's your life situation. What about your life? What do you mean by life? Well, this moment is your life. It always, your life is always this moment. Is there anything wrong with this moment? A question I ask in the power of now. What is your problem right now? If you're really present, you come into the present moment, which is all there ever is. And in this present moment, what is your problem? And then you have to really wake up into the present moment and see, well right now I'm breathing, I'm sitting here and I'm looking around and I'm seeing a bit of sky and I'm seeing a potted plant and I'm seeing the flowers. It's all quite lovely and it's relatively quiet here. The temperature is fine. And I may even feel that there's an aliveness in my body. I breathe and I feel alive. Every cell is alive. I call it the inner body awareness. You become aware that you are alive in your body. So you're stepping out of your mind, you're stepping into sense perceptions, come to your senses and you also come into your body. And then you're now in the present moment. That's your life. And yes, of course you have to deal with the stuff in your life situation, but not be lost in it. You deal with it when the moment comes, when you're able to take action or do something, then you deal with it. But you're no longer lost in it and you're no longer completely absorbed by this unhappy pseudo-identity that's created by useless thinking. So you come into the present moment and this is your life. And the rest is your life situation. And then after a while you're able to balance your dealing with your life situation and experiencing life directly. And then beginning to appreciate the present moment and realizing that it's actually quite wonderful.