What if you could CTL+ALT+DEL your brain?

What if you could CTL+ALT+DEL your brain?

In our daily toils with machines running the ubiquitous Windows OS most of us has at some point used the three-fingers gesture CTL+ALT+DEL. The gesture opens the task manager and allows us to see the many programs running in the background. Some we have started and left running, a few are not responding, many are just hogging resources. At times you do CTL+ALT+DEL because your computer has slowed down or just frozen. In most occasions, it’s a useful cleaning exercise that leads to better performance and prevents fatals crashes.

What if you could do that same with your brain/mind? How many long-forgotten anxieties would you find that are still running in the background? How many gnawing memories are still bitting pieces of your hippocampus? How many tasks are you keeping in your working memory that should have long migrated to ink - either liquid or electronic? Worse yet, how many grudges are kept running in the background of your soul?

How much brain space could you make available by letting go of that dead cargo? How many mind resources could you free up by closing some of these non-responding issues?

The answer is non-trivial.

The reason is that you would significantly enhance your energy levels, extend your battery life, and help other processes run better. It would increase your overall efficiency.

How then can we CTL+ALT+DEL our minds? All experiments in self-examination will help, be it analysis, therapy, coaching, meditation, mindfulness, or prayer. For millennia, philosophers have alerted us that a non-examined life is not worth living. That process of self-examination is the key to fully developing as a whole person, aware of our underlying fears and aspirations, recognizing our limitations, learning and pushing our skills, diminishing our prejudices and illusions.

That is the path pointed by sages immemorial, from Buddha and Aristotle, all the way to our modern gurus in Seligman and Jeste, to authentic happiness.

Find a friend, a coach, a therapist, or a mentor, and get started in your process of CTL+ALT+DEL your brain/mind. The juice will be worth the squeeze.