The Observer Changes the Observed

The Observer Changes the Observed

You Think You're Just Watching? Think Again.

Let’s get one thing straight. You are not a passive observer of your life. You’re not sitting in a movie theater watching a film that’s already been made. You are the damn projector, the screen, and the audience all at once. Every single second, your attention is shaping the world around you. Not in some fluffy, woo-woo, “just think positive” kind of way. I’m talking about the hard, cold, scientifically-proven reality of quantum physics.

The idea that “energy flows where attention goes” isn’t just a nice-sounding platitude. It’s a fundamental principle of the universe. And the sooner you grasp this, the sooner you can stop being a victim of your circumstances and start being the architect of your reality.

The Problem: We’re All Backward-Looking People

Most of us live life looking in the rearview mirror. We are obsessed with the past. We define ourselves by our past failures, our past traumas, our past successes. We are, as my mentor Dr. Bob Melamede would say, “Backward-Looking People” (BLPs). We are trying to drive a car forward while staring intently at the road behind us. It’s a recipe for disaster.

This backward-looking mindset is a trap. It keeps you stuck in a state of equilibrium, a state of balance. And as Dr. Bob taught me, equilibrium is death. Life, real life, exists at the edge of chaos, in a state of being far-from-equilibrium. It’s in this dynamic, ever-changing state that self-organization happens, that complexity arises, that life thrives.

“The greatest illusion is that we are separate from the world we observe. The truth is, we are co-creating it with every thought, every measurement, every glance.”

When you’re stuck in the past, you’re essentially observing the same old patterns, reinforcing them, and ensuring that your future looks exactly like your past. You are observing a static reality, and so it remains static. You are a rat in a wheel, and you don’t even realize you’re the one making it spin.

The Application: Stop Watching, Start Creating

So what the hell does this mean for you, right now, in your messy, complicated, beautiful life? It means you have to get intentional about where you place your attention. Are you focusing on your problems, or are you focusing on the solutions? Are you dwelling on your past mistakes, or are you envisioning a future of your own design?

This is the difference between a Forward-Looking Person (FLP) and a Backward-Looking Person (BLP). An FLP understands that the past is a sunk cost. It’s information, nothing more. They use that information to make better decisions in the present, to aim their attention at the future they want to create. They embrace the chaos, the uncertainty, because they know that’s where the magic of self-organization happens.

Your endocannabinoid system (ECS) is the master regulator that helps you navigate this process. It’s the biological interface between your mind and your body, constantly working to maintain homeostasis and adapt to a changing environment. When you’re stuck in a backward-looking loop, your ECS goes haywire. You’re in a constant state of stress, of fight-or-flight. But when you become an FLP, when you start consciously directing your attention, you give your ECS the signals it needs to thrive. You allow your body and mind to self-organize into a more complex, more resilient, more adaptive state.

Reflecting on my own experiences, I recognize how often I resisted change and clung to familiar patterns, even when they no longer served me. This resistance was a barrier to growth and well-being, illustrating how challenging it can be to align with the ECS’s role in maintaining balance. Understanding this has been crucial in shifting from passivity to active engagement with change. It’s time to stop being a spectator and start being a player. Here’s how:

The Takeaway: Your Attention is Your Superpower

It’s time to stop being a spectator and start being a player. Here’s how:

1. Audit Your Attention: For one week, consciously track where your attention goes. How much of it is spent on the past? How much on worrying about the future? How much is scattered and unfocused? The results will likely shock you.
2. Set Your Intention: At the beginning of each day, decide what you want to create. What reality do you want to collapse from the quantum field of possibility? Write it down. Be specific. This is your target.
3. Practice Focused Observation: When you work, work. When you’re with your family, be with them. Eliminate distractions. Your focused attention is the laser that cuts through the noise and shapes reality. Unfocused attention is a dim, useless flashlight.
4. Embrace the Chaos: Stop trying to control everything. Life is messy. It’s far-from-equilibrium. Your job is not to create perfect order, but to surf the waves of chaos with intention and grace. Trust in the process of self-organization. And most importantly, learn to feel the flow. Your endocannabinoid system is your internal compass for this. When you’re aligned with the flow of time, moving forward, creating, and adapting, you feel it. There’s a sense of rightness, of engagement, of being in the zone. That’s your ECS telling you that you’re successfully surfing the edge of chaos. When you feel stuck, anxious, or depressed, that’s a signal that you’re fighting the current, that you’re stuck in a backward-looking eddy. Listen to those signals. They are your guide back to the flow.

This isn’t easy. It takes practice. It takes discipline. But it’s the only way to live a life of purpose, a life of creation, a life on your own damn terms.

Stop waiting for the world to change. You are the one who changes it. Your gaze is the chisel that sculpts the marble of reality. What masterpiece will you create?

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