The human mind is my fascination at the moment. Reading psychology studies about different aspects of human behavior would be a fine way to scratch this itch, but I have decided to embark along a different journey. To more deeply understand my mind, I have decided to simply pay more attention to my subjective experience; in other words, I have decided to start practicing meditation. I’m very early in what I expect to be a long journey, but I wanted to share my findings so far. 

Ironically, I haven’t been able to meditate successfully for longer than a few seconds and yet I feel like I have gleaned a lot from my struggles. Our minds are almost constantly lost in thought. A thought enters into our consciousness and we are almost immediately guided by the thought. If it is a sad thought, we feel sad. If it is a happy thought, we feel happy. The thought is in the driver seat and we are merely a passenger. In the moment, there is a total lack of control. Even more amazingly, we don’t have any control over the thought arising in the first place. There is an inherent paradox here. We feel like we are in control of our lives and yet our minds are occupied by thoughts almost constantly that are beyond our control. The nature of our mind is truly in direct conflict with our desires and goals. 

I think this is an important realization and the takeaway is that we should question our instincts, emotions, and thoughts the moment they arise. For example, if we feel angry about something, instead of letting our anger guide us, we should question why did it arise in the first place. Is anger really how we wanted to feel or did we find ourselves in the passenger seat taken hostage by the nature of our minds? The likely answer is the latter though it need not be. Being more mindful about everyday interactions will lead to outcomes that we actually intend rather than letting our bare instincts guide us. This in turn will lead to fuller more happier lives.

In my last post, I claimed that the purpose of life is to acquire knowledge and use that knowledge to create. This purpose can be seen clearly in a child’s inborn curiosity of the world as they learn and play. As we grow older, we slowly start to lose this sense of curiosity. One reason for this is we start to develop limiting beliefs.

I have many myself. I’m not a creative person. I don’t have what it takes to start my own company. I’m naturally shy around strangers. Public speaking is terrifying and I can’t do it. These beliefs are not inherently true. By definition, these limiting beliefs are just illusions of the mind. I’m on a journey to overcome my limiting beliefs and I hope to inspire others to do the same.

As the imaginary barriers crumble in our minds, we once again feel the child-like curiosity we once felt. If we truly breakdown the barriers, we no longer fear failure or embarrassment or all the other negative emotions that are associated with limiting beliefs. Rather, we look at it as the next exciting adventure in our lives as a chance to gain additional knowledge and grow as a person.

We also start to see how we have applied similar beliefs to others; even those who we love the most. This can lead to a vicious cycle where we start to confirm each others limiting beliefs and make it even harder to overcome. If we zoom out a bit more, and look at our interaction with society as a whole, we see that often we pigeonhole others and put them into neat little boxes in our minds. It doesn’t need to be this way. We just need to be aware of when our brain is establishing patterns that are harmful and break them.

Breaking these patterns is like breaking any other bad habit. It is not going to happen overnight but if we focus on the end goal which is a whole new way of looking at ourselves, at those we love, at the world, we will find the motivation to overcome. Most of us remember when we were told as a child that we can be whatever we want to be in life. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing more true.

 

I went over to my brother and sister-in-law’s house one day after work. I was on the couch on my computer when my 2 year old niece comes running out. I sit her on my lap and she begins to hit the keys on my laptop. She looks up and sees that the letters are showing up on the screen as her eyes light up in excitement.

The knowledge of how a keyboard works on a computer is totally new to her and I’m witnessing her discover this in real-time and it is an amazing sight. As kids, we discover new things all the time and there is real joy in those discoveries and the acquisition of new knowledge. As we grow older, sometimes we lose sight of this basic source of happiness.

The goal is for me and the reader to experience that sense of joy with each new blog post and the conversation that ensues. I’m currently really into philosophy so I’m going to start there. My first big philosophical breakthrough is that the purpose of life is to acquire new knowledge and use it to create. This is exactly what my niece did as she learned the workings of a keyboard and used it to create letters on the screen.