Something I’ve come to learn about human behavior. I believe that at a young age we are conditioned to see the world in a specific way, call it our manner…. For me and most people, we are conditioned to regard the validity of our emotions about a stimulus, and then to rationalize it with our logic. Despite what people say, we are moved by emotion, not logic.
Is it our conditioning, mainly from our mother or is there an underlying temperament which drives our behavior and actions? And not just actions but the rationalization we all use behind our actions…
But logic is often based on subjective observations. We can sometimes interact with our world in an automatic way as the world presents stimulus to us. You may be walking through the grocery store parking lot from your car, on your way in to get some coffee, bananas, and dish detergent. Your mind is still fully absorbed by Schwartz at work, who is insisting on bypassing a step in the process and messing up your workflow. As you look up to check for traffic you see a mother to the right, in front of the store down by the Pharmacy entrance, and the baby starts to cry. You just watched that mother slap her child while strapped in a shopping cart. The baby’s scream is disturbing as you shuttle through the automatic door.
You find the familiar coffee aisle. As you pass down it you imagine that you could steam coffee if you were a cappuccino machine. That mother has you so upset. As you’re trying to keep your focus on the three things on the shopping list, you grab the coffee. You then see the earl grey tea bags. Oh yea, and hot chocolate because it’s getting cold.
As you meander your way over to the aisle with dish detergent, you start thinking maybe I should have gotten a cart. The dish detergent loads the burden of the two handled store carry basket. But all the while your mind goes back to that poor child, and you are wondering, “if that is what she did in public, imagine what happens in private?”. As this mind thread wraps itself around the “Schwartz thread” , your outlook on the world is diminishing and you’re feeling angry.
Drenched in self pity, you slough over to the produce section and grab your bananas. Somehow the banana casts a new light on your mindset. Perhaps bananas are just inherently sexual, funny, and yellow? Even the banana peel has its own host of connotations. But the intensity has broken, as you stand in the check out line looking at all of the other people standing in the check out line…. You’re steaming coffee!
A week later Schwartz is fired for obstinance. Your manager has an idea for an improvement, initiate a new workflow plan, which Schwartz presented to the manager a month previously.
Oh and that Mother… she has a rule about lollipops because she almost choked on one as a kid. No lolly pops in the cart while moving over the bumpy parking lots. It’s OK in the store. What looked like a slap was actually a yank…. Of the Lollipop.
So much of what we see and hear is NOT what we think it is. Do you live in an emotional comfy place of self justifying emotions?
Ask yourself…
Why do I believe to understand someone else’s intent? Why am I thinking that? Based on what evidence? Then based on what assumptions about that evidence? Do this over and over and you will find that there is an emotion, which has been driving you. Peel the layers back and in time we begin to understand that we do not understand anything at all.
In the end I believe most people will find that we model our world based upon the same assumptions our parents taught us. These are our blind spots. We all have them. You can not rationally conceive true change, or else you are not changing. True change takes a jump of intuition in some direction off of your current bearing. You must overcome fear to make those jumps and be willing to give up some control.
Stop chasing problems. Change your focus. There are two keys.
Gratitude is an emotion which forces you to look outside of yourself as a source and to recognize your environment.
Take Personal Responsibility in All Things. Placing blame on others for your problems weakens you. In placing blame you are also transferring the power to change. Regardless of the circumstances, there should be no deviation from this principal in personal matters.
Turn off the noise, find a quiet space and think. And the longer the better!