The Three-Word Compass: Is There Joy, Ease, and Lightness in What I'm Doing?

In The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle offers us a radical yet simple diagnostic tool for our mental health. He suggests that if we want to know whether we have drifted away from the present and into the heavy fog of "psychological time," we only need to ask one question:

"Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing?"

If the answer is no, we haven't necessarily chosen the wrong task—we’ve just forgotten how to inhabit it.

Understanding the Burden of "Psychological Time"

Most of our stress doesn't come from the work in front of us; it comes from psychological time. This is when our minds are stuck in a loop of past regrets ("I should have started sooner") or future anxieties ("What if I fail?").

When you are trapped in psychological time, your current activity becomes a mere "means to an end." You aren't fully thee with washing the dishes; you are mentally trying to finish them so you can sit down. You aren't fully there writing the report; you are mentally at the meeting where it gets critiqued. This tension creates a sense of life as a burden—a heavy, grinding struggle.

Mind and body are disconnected and that's painful.

The Secret of the "How"

Tolle makes a profound distinction: The how is always more important than the what.

We often think the solution to our unhappiness is a major external shift: a new job, a new city, or a new relationship. But presence teaches us that we can find joy, ease and lightness without changing a single external circumstance. We simply change our internal relationship to the moment.

• Acceptance over Resistance: Resistance is the primary cause of suffering. When we resist the present moment—wishing we were somewhere else or doing something else—we create an internal friction that burns through our energy.

• Action over Result: When you give much more attention to the doing than to the result, you enter a flow state. The result will take care of itself; your only responsibility is the quality of your presence in this exact second.

Practice: Honoring the Moment

Next time you feel a sense of "heaviness" or "struggle" in your day, try this three-step reset:

1. Stop and Check: Ask the question: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I'm doing? 2. Accept the "What": If you are stuck in traffic or filing paperwork, can you drop the resistance? Can you accept - not the story of the situation but just the reality of this moment.

2. Shift the "How": Give 100% of your attention to the doing, be there fully.

As soon as you honor the present moment, the "unhappiness" of the struggle dissolves. You aren't doing more; you are bringing in Being. And in that being, life begins to flow again.

John Woychuk is a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association; a Certified Clinical Anxiety Treatment Professional, ADHD-Certified Clinical Services Provider and Certified Clinical Trauma Professional. Please contact me for appointment inquiries.