Add, Subtract, Change

I am sitting here looking at my bicycle as I write this. To come up with new ideas in bicycle design, all we have to do is look at elements that are there and ask three things. What can we add, what can we subtract, and what can we change?

Would pet owners like a built-in dog or cat carrier? Are 18 gears necessary? There are still six gears and one less thing to break if a shifter is removed. What if wheels were larger or frame made of a flexible material? What would advantages be?

Personal Problems Too

Joe is also a hypochondriac which leads him to a doctor that tells Joe he has a terminal brain cloud and only a few months to live.

So this is wake up call Joe needs to start living. He quits his job then runs into an eccentric billionaire played by Lloyd Bridges who promises to give Joe lifestyle of a king if he will end up jumping into a volcano.

Joe agrees and it's fun to watch him go on shopping spree going around in white limo. Then he is transported first class by air to Los Angeles, where he meets up with billionaire's daughter Patricia played by Meg Ryan, who is going to transport Joe to a remote island on her yacht.

One night on yacht with breeze gently blowing, Joe and Patricia are talking and Joe says that Patricia's life..... and life..... seem so unbelievable to him.

Patricia responds:

"My father says almost whole world's asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says only a few people are awake. And they live in a state of constant total amazement."

The whole world's asleep.....think about that for a minute.

Why was that put in there?

If you watched move, did that strike you as being unbelievable it was even there?

What being asleep and what waking up means is what we are going to explore for rest of article.

Waking Up that's what it's about. It took a death sentence for Joe to begin waking up. When he did, he found himself entering into a world that was unbelievable and a world that most folks don't even know exists.

Let's flash forward in movie to scene where it's night and Joe is on a raft and moon begins to rise overhead. The moon seems so huge and awesome to Joe that as a movie watcher you become so caught up in vastness of moon and drama of movie that you almost become one with entire experience.

Before this in movie he is asking himself and others question does God exist. Joe is awestruck, and in that moment of realization, he just knows that God exists and becomes so grateful for his life. The moment is one of total amazement for Joe and movie watcher.

In that moment when Joe becomes one with experience, he now understands.....the need for questions to be answered isn't there.....he wakes up to present moment and all present moment is trying to convey to him and finally understanding he has been seeking comes.

Most of us are lost in thought. Now we're not talking about practical thought, those thoughts you need to drive a car or solve problems, we're talking about all those thoughts which aren't needed for life - thoughts that are painful to us.

Being asleep means being lost in painful or unwanted thoughts.