Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – We Know So Little

Tags

Attitudes, Beliefs, Cars, change, Detachment, Homes, Loved ones, Property, wisdom

“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” – Socrates

Each of us has an inner voice. Some call it conscience. It is that part of us that truly knows the difference between right and wrong. We all have access to it, but many refuse to listen. It’s that voice that guides us. The more you listen to that voice, the louder it becomes. When you ignore the voice, it dwindles until you can barely hear it.

I believe our conscience is necessary because it comes from a source unaffected by the change that occurs around us. We have adapted to the world we live in using the senses we have. These sense inputs create a map we need to survive. How accurate are they? Not so much. Our internal maps are only as good as the input we have received, which may have changed. People change. Environments change. We change. The internal maps inside us remain the same until we receive new inputs and those inputs cause our brains to adjust the map we use. When things change to quickly or without our knowledge, we are thrown into chaos.

The wisdom we gain over time, accepts that our internal maps are not reality, but a pseudo-reality that we need to make sense of the world. Wisdom tells us that what we think we know, we really don’t. It tells us that change occurs and we must expect it. It tells us that the map we have is inaccurate. This wisdom is comforting because it helps us realize that nothing is permanent in this world and if we are unattached to it, life becomes easier. We no longer fear losing something or losing someone because losing only applies when we are attached to something. Attachment in this case means we have an unhealthy relationship with physical things that will leave us. Attachment only causes suffering. Detachment frees us from wanting or needing. We are happy with what we have at the moment and will be just as happy if something changes in the next moment.

Wisdom tells us that the only things we can keep are those things we have earned inwardly. The love you have in your heart is yours forever. No one can take away your love for God, love for your significant other, love for your pet, love for your family, or love for yourself. The love you have is yours to keep forever.

Your car, your home, your loved ones, your pets, your job, your toys, and your life will all end. When your life ends, none of these things will go with you. The only things you will take with you are the experiences you have and the love you have in your heart.

Detachment is not an easy thing to achieve. Some consider it a heartless state. How can I not care about my husband or wife dying? How can I not care about losing my home in a tornado? The state of detachment is not a state of “not caring”. It is a state of balance. Losses and disappointments will cause the detached person to mourn. It is natural to mourn a negative situation. Detachment allows us to mourn a loss and then move on, without being stuck. It allows us to heal more quickly because the people, things, and experiences we “lost” were never really ours. If we never own something, can we truly be unhappy or sad when they leave us?

 

No. Detachment means we enjoy what we have to the fullest, while we have it. Then, when it comes time for something to leave our lives, we let it go. We move on. We move in a new direction. Detachment is the wisest state to be in when you are dealing with a physical reality in perpetual change.

I hope each of you has a terrific Wednesday! Thank you for reading this today!

Until next time…

Dave

 

 

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Complainers

Tags

Beliefs, Complaining, Delete, Distort, Generalize, habits, Limiting beliefs, Neural Pathways, Problems, Values

Image by Prettysleepy2 from Pixabay 

“When you are complaining, you become a living, breathing, crap magnet.” – T. Harv Eker

Have you ever worked with someone who blames others, complains constantly, and never gets anything done? They are toxic and uncomfortable to be around. What’s even more sad is that they don’t even realize what they are doing half of the time.

If you don’t think your thoughts are real, tangible things that create your destiny. Think the worst thing you can think of happening every day for the next month and find out where that thinking will take you. You see, the brain is an economist. It likes to save energy, because it consumes more energy than your body does. It conserves energy by automating everything you show it you want to do all the time. It does this by strengthening neural pathways each time they are used.

Complaining, playing the “blame game”, and all the rest, are habits. If you habitually complain, blame, and all the rest, your brain will continue to show you every reason possible that you are justified in your complaining and blaming. Your mind will delete inputs from your senses that counter this belief. Your mind will generalize inputs to reinforce the same thoughts across many areas. Your brain will alter inputs to satisfy what it already believes. Subsequently, if you believe that everyone is out to get you, things will always go wrong, and you will never get this or that, your brain will make sure you are right. Once these thoughts and beliefs are hard-wired in your brain, you are stuck with them, and your life will literally be a living hell.

The only way to salvage this situation is to take responsibility for yourself. You are 100% responsible for everything that you have in your life. You are 100% responsible for your results. You are 100% responsible for your attitude and mindset. Everything in your life as it is, is the result of your actions, your beliefs and values, your decisions, and your attitude.

If you are unhappy with your life, change your beliefs and values. Change your attitude. Take your time and make better decisions. Act differently. You have to do this. Your friends can’t. Your relatives can’t. Your husband or wife can’t. It’s all up to you. You dug the hole you’re in, you can dig your way out.

Stop looking for proof to justify your feelings. Your mind is already sabotaging you. It will find the proof, because you have hard-wired it to do so. Look at your beliefs. How can you make yourself happy? How can you make yourself calm and collected? How can you make yourself less worrisome? It all starts with your current beliefs and values. If you believe all of your problems are caused by other people (bad boss, stupid people, uncooperative support personnel), your brain will prove it to you. It will identify every weakness of the people around you and prove to you that they are all brain-dead and are out to get you. Change that belief to I have a great boss, the people I work with all want to win, and support personnel will do all they can to help me succeed in my role, and your brain will slowly but surely begin to prove that to you as well. You see how this works?

Changing your beliefs is not easy. You have built these beliefs over and over and over again. You can change them. You do this the same way you built them. You repeat a new belief you want to create over and over and over again. My boss is great. My boss isn’t perfect but wants to win like I do. My boss is there to support me. My boss takes care of me. My coworkers are friendly and supportive. My coworkers are fun to be around. Support personnel do all they can to accommodate my needs. Support personnel are nice to work with. Support personnel are just like me–they want to do their jobs well.

You can literally do this with any of your belief systems. You can rewrite them. You can feed them and stop feeding the limiting beliefs that cause you to suffer. Look for pain in your life. Look for suffering. These are both huge clues in finding your limiting beliefs. If you complain, are unhappy, and believe that everything and everyone is out to get you, these are all limiting beliefs. A negative person will find something wrong in every situation. A positive person will find something right in every situation and the people they work with. Guess who is the happier person who will continue to look for more right things in their life? You guessed right.

A positive person’s beliefs work the same way a negative person’s beliefs do. They distort, delete, or generalize all of their inputs to satisfy their belief system. Change your beliefs and you’ll change your results.

Until next time…

Dave