In the film The Matrix, the villain says to the hero: “It seems you have been living two lives.”
In fact almost all of us are doing the same thing - and the conflict between our two lives is what causes nearly all of our problems. It turns out that only one of these lives is real, but we spend most of our time mistaking the false one for the real one.
The problem isn’t that we can’t function in the false world. We can. But we can’t thrive in it.
What are the two lives or worlds I’m talking about? You can notice both of them right now.
Try this: For a few seconds, simply notice what is happening around you. What you see and the sounds you hear. How your body feels against your chair.
Then notice what your mind is saying about it all. Already, you’re looking at the two worlds I’m talking about.
One life is the one we live biologically. It’s the world we experience through our five senses. Everything we see, hear, smell, taste and touch in every moment. It’s actually what is there right now. And this is what our whole nervous system, driven by our brain, is designed to respond perfectly to.
Look at what is going on in your body right now. It’s adjusting to the world around you. It maintains your temperature and all your bodily functions, perfectly and automatically. Your eyes move, you move your body with your limbs - all in response to what is in your immediate environment.
Your other life is the one you live mentally, through your thoughts. Notice that this world isn’t made up of what is happening. It’s made up of what you’re saying about what is happening. And most of the time those words aren’t really describing this moment at all. They’re caught up in a story about something that happened yesterday or that might happen tomorrow.
This is the world where, for example, instead of simply reaching for a coat when it gets cold, we say to ourselves “I wonder if it is going to get cold.” Instead of responding to our situation right now we say “I wonder what problems I might have in the future?”
The second world is the one where most of our problems come from. That probably sounds ridiculous. After all, our problems seem very real. You might say “Liam, I have problems and they’re not just in my head.”
Well stay with me for a moment, because there’s something important hiding in plain sight.
If you dig a little deeper, you begin to notice something surprising - and it starts with taking a closer look at what we actually mean by “thinking”.
It turns out that what we call “thinking” is two distinct and very different processes. One helps us - and the other gets in the way.
The first type of thinking is mental activity. This is the brain doing what brains have always done: measuring, calculating, judging distance, recognising a face, catching a glass before it hits the floor. It runs constantly, but here’s the key thing - this type of thinking doesn’t use words. A cat measuring the exact leap to a branch is performing staggering mental work, but with not a single word involved. This is the brain at full power, and it has been running perfectly in every living creature for millions of years.
The second “thinking” is mental narration. This is the voice in your head: commenting, telling stories, running descriptions of what is happening and what it might mean. Saying things like: I wonder if it’ll get cold.” “What did they mean by that?” “I should have said something.” “How do I….?” Unlike mental activity, narration is made entirely of words - and that is the giveaway, because it only exists at all because language exists. Without language there is no voice and no narration.
Here’s something interesting. Because we can hear the voice, we naturally assume that this type of “thinking” is us using our intelligence most effectively.
But is it? Think about the times you’re completely absorbed in something. Catching a ball, driving a car, having a conversation that really flowed. In those moments, the voice usually isn’t there at all, is it? And you perform better, not worse. All musicians, athletes and performers say the same thing: once they start thinking, their results falter. If thinking actually helped, the opposite should happen.
Clearly, in our best moments, something else is doing the work. And the voice simply starts up later, describing what is happening, or interrupting it altogether.
The two worlds we live in come down to this:
One world is happening.
The other is being narrated.
And we spend far more time living in the narration than in what is actually happening. And that is where the problems come from - because our brain is being asked to deal with something that isn’t real - something it was never designed to do.
We’re so busy trying to deal with what we think might happen in the future that we don’t deal with what is happening right now.
Which points us straight to the solution. If the trouble comes from living in the imaginary world, the way out is to come back to the real one - the world our brain was built for.
Here’s a good place to start. Right now, just notice the difference between what is happening and what you are thinking. Notice your body, what is around you. The sights, sounds, smells and feeling sensations. Then notice the voice in your head - the commentator and storyteller. Stay with it for a few moments. Don’t try to stop the voice. Just notice it.
Can you see the difference - and how one is real and the other isn’t?
There’s one other thing you become aware of when you do this - and it’s perhaps the most startling thing of all.
Real life isn’t something you control. It’s something that’s happening through you.
Look again at right now. What’s moving your eyes across this line? What’s drawing your breath in and letting it out? What’s keeping you upright in your chair? You’re not doing any of it. And not one of those things needs a thought, a decision, or any effort from “you” at all. They’re simply happening - perfectly.
But we’ve trained ourselves to think that the voice in our head is running our life. It never was. It’s just been narrating, and calling itself the one running the show.
True freedom isn’t found by learning to think better. It’s found by living in the real world. And by accepting that it’s not the world of our thoughts.
Once you begin noticing the difference between reality and the stories in your head, something changes. You stop reacting to things that haven’t happened. Decisions become simpler. Life gets easier. You’re no longer trying to manage an imaginary world. You’re simply responding to the real one.
You start to see that your mental narration, far from being the answer to your problems, is actually the very thing that has kept you stuck.
If you’d like a simple way to separate the two worlds so you can actually move forward, try my free tool, Nextla. It uses a process called Reality Filtering to cut through the noise and show you your next most important step. Try it free here.
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