I believe that we all have antennas and that decisions can be made without engaging our brain in intense thinking about which direction to take.

We travel on a time-based path, in one direction—at least that’s how I experience it within my reality1. On a high level, my mental model of life is that we are in a maze resembling a tree. Each moment, we stand at the root of the tree2 and can only move forward in time, down the tree. At each actual root, there are an infinite number of branches, but we can only traverse one branch at a time3.

This is overwhelming—we need to make decisions about which branch to pursue. We can’t see the entire tree, yet we might glimpse a few branches ahead. Although everything is interconnected, this fact doesn’t necessarily simplify matters for us, right? We can never truly predict the outcome of taking a certain branch. We are left to guess, to use our intuition, our gut feeling4, in decision-making.

Everyone has a gut feeling, yet not everyone listens to it. Over time, it seems we lose the connection to ourselves. What if depression is the inner self’s attempt to capture our attention? Could it be that we are depressed because we’re not heeding our gut feeling?

A good way to reconnect with our gut feeling is to meditate. I would describe meditation as the practice of broadening our focus and quieting our thoughts. It is a means of returning to the present moment.

I am fond of the notion of being guided in life5 and trusting that everything will work out fine. Such trust alleviates anxiety and is the key to living a happy life. It also helps us reconnect with ourselves and the universe.

  1. “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” - Albert Einstein ↵

  2. Future and past are illusions. There is only the present moment. ↵

  3. A decision may be instantaneous because we must choose between an infinite number of branches. ↵

  4. Often, things turn out differently than one might think. ↵

  5. I describe myself as non-religious, but I am drawn to the idea of a higher power, which could be an inner power within us all, the universe, or a concept of god. Based on my current understanding, nothing cannot exist; otherwise, I would not be here, so there must be something. ↵