MOST people are on the road to nowhere. Like everyone else they got a set of genes from their parents that not only made them look the way they do, but to a greater or lesser extent, made them think and react the way they do. It’s a complicated subject but it doesn’t take a genius to realise that who we are and how we think and react is a result of that messy, labyrinthine concoction of our genes and our life experiences, .

But what do you actually mean by "who you are"? We think of ourselves as “me”, a pretty stable personality, albeit with the odd ups and downs, and maybe occasionally an uncharacteristic outburst for good or bad. So a kind of solid, fixed thing, but with blips.

This is the “me” the Buddha looked at in the fabled days leading up to what is called his enlightenment or state of nirvana. When he just sat there day in day out, only stopping to eat and drink when necessary, he had remarkable insight. This thing he called “me” didn’t really seem to be a thing at all. It was a process, or flow as he put it. A never-ending flow of shift and change, of flux and movement, especially of the mind. When he tried to locate a stable “me” or self he discovered that he couldn’t find one. All that existed was this stream of thoughts, emotions, reactions, ideas, moods and mental states.

Moreover he had the great insight that this “me” that he couldn’t even find wasn’t in charge of what was pulsing out of his mind. It was all automatic. As another great Buddhist teacher put it, “there is no thinker behind the thought”.

Now that’s challenging stuff to read on a hopefully otherwise relaxing Sunday for you. The bad news is it gets worse. Not only does there not seem to be a “me”, in other words “you” but this whole stream of thoughts and feelings that pours out of your brain and takes you over from moment to moment wasn’t chosen by you either.

So whether you’re a top-notch lawyer, the First Minister, a retired ex-plumber or the world’s most expensive footballer, you probably had little say in how you got to be where you are. Your automatic brain, your genetic tendencies, and the series of manifold experiences, coincidences, and good and bad luck led you to where you are now. Even the supposedly reasoned major life choices you made were for the most part made for you, or at least hugely influenced by factors outwith your control.

So to the two big things in life according to conventional society.

Career. You didn’t take into account over 90 per cent of all the careers you could have chosen because your genes and life experiences didn’t introduce them to your frame of reference.

Love of your life. You didn’t happen to meet 99.99 per cent of all the choices of partner, husband, wife, so your genes tricked you into sexual and relationship attraction, made you fall head over heels in love, which is pretty close to a form of temporary insanity, and boom, decision made.

So, if the dice had rolled even just slightly differently you’d currently be doing an entirely different career, or being a stay at home non-working adult, and go home to an entirely different partner, possibly of the other sex, or to no partner at all.

Mindfulness is as close to an intervention in this morass as we can find. We learn to notice this strange state of affairs as pretty accurate, no matter how bizarre it seems. And, accepting this reality, we try to do what we can to bring at least some bearing to the arrangement.

By developing our skill of noticing what’s going on in each moment, we can see that certain thoughts and responses that arise in our mind are not helpful, and let them go. We can then see if a better alternative pops up and if it does, do that instead. That’s it. Do it during as many moments as you can. You’ll be amazed at how it changes the direction of your life in the long run. You’re still conditioned but significantly less so than in the past, and that makes all the difference.