Photo by @anniegavin
Having completed a long list of factors that make change difficult, the next few chapters are about the difficulties in choosing a worthy goal.
(Apologies for a slightly longer post, though, I am sure it will be worth it)
Sure we all tell stories, all fictional, we call them our past.
Human beings tend to conflate what happened with their story of what happened. In fact, the moment the story is created in our head, we start living it through our way of being, thoughts and actions.
Memory
How does our brain store all the information we collect through our lifetime ? So effortlessly. Well that’s actually a lie. The brain stores a lot of impressions, but very few details. Even in traumatic situations, we remember most our feelings and emotions, rather than details about what happened.
If someone slaps us, we remember that they slapped us. We don’t remember what they were wearing when they slapped us or sometimes we lose the reason why they slapped us, but we will never forget that they slapped us. Most of our memory is emotional. Content with high emotions is easier to recall.
Filling in the blanks
These memories are heavily coloured by our state of mind at the time of remembering them. The brain fills in details by looking at OUR state of mind.
Suppose you have a bad relationship with a person. You think that they are constantly trying to put you down, based on previous interactions. They ask you “What did you have for breakfast?”, You immediately conclude that they are Goading you or trying to trap you into saying something so that they can have another laugh.
After this interaction, your relationship with them has become even worse. In truth, they might have just been trying to start a conversation. This could be their “Olive twig”, but that doesn’t make sense to you, so your mind filled in the blanks with an “ulterior motive”.
Most people are too stupid to be cunning. Your brain though, it can spin one hell of a tale when faced with facts that don’t match your knowledge or experience.
Hanlons Razor: Dont attribute to malice which can easily be attributed to Stupidity.
Missing the plot
You may think you know whats going on, but more often than not, you have missed the plot completely. Take a look at this video with volume on please.
How could you miss *that* man! Sloppy un”bear”ably sloppy. Just kidding, everyone misses it the first time.
More importantly, You find what you seek. If you want to find people out to get you, you will. If you want to find people who hate you, you will. If you want to find people who love you, you will. None of these may be true, but you will find evidence if you need to. That need is your brain’s attempt to stay coherent and valid.
The Dilemma
The question we need to ponder is whether or not we are Don Quixote in our lives. Don Quixote imagined a life where he was a knight and many other things. He ultimately died because what he imagined was not true.
The problem is, that sometimes our beliefs are true. Our imagined future will make the future better. Other times they are just beliefs based on a bad set of experiences and continuing to believe them is just making you miserable.
While Don Quixote is on one side of the spectrum, there are people like MK Gandhi and Martin Luther King who stand on the other side. They had beliefs that the general populace pooh-poohed in the beginning, but they changed the future of the world to be commensurate with their belief.
Choosing Direction
When dealing with your beliefs (which are a huge part of the future you are living into), you need to learn to separate what happened with the story you have attached to it. This is hard and needs your focus and concentration.
Open your journal. Take any traumatic experience you have had. First write down what happened as best as you remember it. If you do this correctly, there should be no “reasons” in the text you write, no explanations. This is because explanations only exist in your head. They don’t exist in describable reality.
Now write your explanation of the experience. Everything in your experience that doesn’t match with what happened (above) is your story. It didn’t *happen physically*; it is your story. This doesn’t mean it’s not true. There may be other explanations though.
Baby in the back seat
You are driving in a car, already late for a meeting. The car in front of you stops at a red light. You stop as well. The lady takes out her lipstick and starts touching up her lips.
“Typical, lady driver” you think with a smirk, stealing a look at your watch.
The lady then bends down, obviously rummaging around her over stuffed handbag for more cosmetics.
The light ahead turns green, but the lady is still bent over. Your temper explodes.
“No basic thought for other people” you think.
You are honking now, everyone behind you is honking, but the lady is still bent down doing something.
You take a sharp left and overtake her and shout obscenities at her for being so callous and not thinking of others. The cars following you do the same.
What actually happened: the lady’s child in the back seat was choking on something and she was frantically trying to remove the blockage in the child’s throat.
Callous? Irresponsible, No. But you will never know.
Another example, Your boss and other leaders suddenly start berating your colleague about bad performance. Before you label that person as a lazy free-loader, consider What is that colleague’s baby in the back seat ? What is the baby in the backseat of your boss and leaders to publicly berate someone. Is there something else going on ?
Interesting Point of View
Your story of what happened is your Point Of View. It’s an interesting Point Of View but ultimately it’s just a point of view. More importantly it is NOT you. It doesn’t have to run your life. Similarly, other’s ideas about you are also just Interesting Points Of View. They don’t need to run your life either.
Meaning Making Machine\
This practice of journal-ling what happened and your story is something you need to do regularly. Whenever you are overcome with a strong emotion, you need to get your journal and write what happened and your story. Then choose what you want to do.
The reason you need to do it over and over again is because human beings are Meaning making machines. Door closes, one meaning, Door opens another meaning. A person smiles, one meaning, person doesn’t smile, another meaning… ad nauseum.
To choose a proper direction or goal you need to be free of all these meanings that you created unconsciously and choose the meanings you want in your life. To do that, you need to understand choice. We will talk about choice in the next chapter.