I struggle with the feeling that some of the lessons are mutually exclusive, the two right now for me are: 1. Being able to control my feelings through my thoughts versus half of life is probably needing to be some sort of negative feeling combined with 2. Future focused planning versus there is only the present moment.
I am pretty much as you describe in many of your videos/podcasts – my circumstances of my life are pretty great – lovely husband, 2 wonderful kids, money comfortable, a job with lots of interesting projects and responsibility, etc – yet I feel somehow unfulfilled. I also readily acknowledge that I buffer – with the full range of drinking, eating, social media and Netflix. I have so far defined that I standardly buffer away boredom and/or feelings of entitlement.

On one side of what I understand from the teachings – I feel the ‘why not’ of just working to change my thoughts to stop feeling unfulfilled, being aware of my thoughts to reduce buffering. Particularly to be more present and focused on the current moment.

Is it necessary to do all the rest of the defining those big objectives, doing the massive action to get them and planning all my time?
Or maybe that is my efficient brain pushing me to maintain the status quo?
How do we balance these conflicting learnings?