Day 279- Why do we choose to create bad experiences???

 

Ever had the experience where you need to do something for the day and you don’t feel like doing it, but when the time comes to do it and your busy with it you find it’s not actually that bad? So why then did you think it’s going to be crappy and why did you not want to do it to begin with?

For example when I was in school and the teacher gave me homework. Throughout the day I would be like totally not looking forward to doing the homework. The more I would think about just how unpleasant it would be the more I would not want to do it and the more I postpone. Some days I would even simply not do it, and the next day I would cram it in quickly before class starts. Other days when I finally push through the resistance and just get to it I found it was actually not that bad. It was not as unpleasant as I thought it would be. So what made me think that it would be bad?

The problem comes with the thinking part. When you have something do to for the day we often start thinking about how it would be doing it – this is mostly based on past experiences. We think about times we did a similar thing before and where it was unpleasant or the bad experiences we had with particular task. For example homework – I would think about all the times I had to sit and struggle with homework and how time consuming it was and how it kept me from things I liked – I would take all of that and project it onto the homework that I need to do later that day.

Also thinking about it we already create the disdain and resistance towards the task ahead by linking it to past experiences. We already create the experience before we even get to the task. So looking at it it’s not the task that makes you not want to do it – you created the “bad” experience even before you started.

This is actually a very unnecessary experience, because we cannot know exactly what we will experience when doing the task that lies ahead of us. It will always be based on past events and assumptions formed from beliefs and ideas, but the fact remains – I will not know unless I actually do it.

Next time when there is something that you need to do, but don’t want to or feel like doing know this – by thinking about how bad it will be you actually create more resistance towards the task and create the bad experience you will have. This can be applied to anything you do. In the end the best thing to do is to stop the thoughts about how crappy it will be – stop creating the experience. Stop the thoughts and when the time comes to do this task simply do it. Stay out of your head be here and get it done and move on. Wouldn’t live be much simpler when we realize that we create how we experience ourselves…

Day 214: Understanding Human Behavior: Awesome Series part 1

 

 

Understanding Human Behavior: Awesome Series is a series were I will write about some of the silly things we do as humans. Most of the time human behavior can be interesting and what makes it even more interesting is the fact that we ourselves do not even know or understand why we do certain things.

Ever became so angry and started yapping things at someone only to ask yourself “why did I say those things?”. Or how about simply things like why you act certain ways or like and dislike things? Most of us simply do not know ourselves – at all.

Today I observed a point in a particular person – Now, we humans are actually the same so when I see a point in someone I see it as myself doing it, putting myself in that persons shoes. It is the only way to really understand the reason for the anger and not to judge the person. So when I write these things instead of writing “they” I am writing “Me/I”.

Let me begin then with one of the silly things we do – Being unnecessarily mean.

Now there can be many reasons for being mean, but one of them has to do with the word inadequacy. Let’s say for example I feel inadequate or inferior – there are two possible outflows here in terms of behavior. One is being generally shy and the other is trying very hard to somehow make up for being inadequate. The second behavior can result in me being mean. Like for example trying to present myself as being better/superior to others by generally being mean whenever the opportunity arrives. This is basically silly human behavior.

It is silly, because I am trying to present myself as superior to others, because I feel inferior wihout ever looking at why I feel inferior. It like trying to correct a problem with a problem. The real issue here is that I feel inferior and so instead of asking myself WHY do I feel inferior I resort to being mean to others to get out of inferiority. The most effective method to get rid of feeling inferior would be in the understanding of How and WHY it was created in the first place. The feeling was created my ME. I alone am responsible for what I feel – I actually create it. And so I can change it. Next I will go into the HOW.

Day 209: How the hell did it get there???

 

IN a vlog I did a while back I spoke about being grateful for the food on your plate. Not to be confused with being grateful for some powerful higher being providing the food, no, but to have a look at each piece of food on your plate and see how it got there. The whole process from the earth to your plate, the labor involved, the packaging everything. You will start to see it is a massive process to get food to your plate as well as great suffering for the animal that had to die so that we may live.

Another cool experiment is to have a look at how that screen you are staring at came to be in your possession. From drilling for the oil to process it for the plastic to mining for the metals and whatever other materials goes into the thing. What about the road you drive on? Do you know what kind of work goes into building a road? It is a massive project and a lot of labor went into it – people worked hard on that particular road.

Even the building you live in – have a look at the whole structure and see what had to happen for that structure to be built. From digging the trenches for the foundations to melting metal for the nails and tools to put it  all together. Not to mention all the piping and draining systems and the electrical systems. People built that building.

I live on a farm and when we first got here it was not in ideal condition. Over the years we did a lot of fixing, building, planting and what not and it was a lot of work. I look around the farm at each fence pole and see the process that was involved in planting it in the ground, because I did the work. I look at the trees and I see what it took for that tree to be there, I planted it. I look at all the things we did over the years and truly appreciate what we have done, because I know what was involved.

So you cannot truly appreciate the building you live in or the cup that holds your coffee, because you do not understand what was involved in creating it. Once I looked at objects and saw what it took for that thing to get where it is I started to have some appreciation towards these things and the people who made it.

Give it a Go.

Cant always get what you want - but if you try you'll get what you need...

 

There is a song that goes "You can't always get what you want, but if you try real hard you'll get what you need". Nope, not true.

With 3 Billion in poverty and billions more struggling to make a living even if you try really hard you can't even get what you need. You need food, a home and water at least to be alive yet many do not have these basic human rights. So the sentence is misleading.

Poverty doesn't  exist because people are lazy - there simply are not enough jobs available to make a decent living. People work hard - even to death just to able to feed themselves or their family. There are horrific jobs people are forced into just to make money. It always comes down to money or rather the lack thereof.

There is definitely enough food, in fact there is enough food being produced today globally to feed 12 billion people. That is a lot of food,  then why are more than 1 billion starving with a  food surplus enough for an additional 5 billion people? Well, the people do not have money to buy the food and so the food gets thrown away.

What about water? Companies like coca-cola that mass produce "diabetes-in-a-can" and other drinks require large amount of water and to get the water they claim lakes and rivers and what-not fencing it of and making it illegal for anybody else to get to that water. You have countries where people live right next to a water treatment plant, but cannot drink the water because they cannot pay for it. So they suffer.

Having a Living Income  would end all of this suffering. If people had money to buy the things they need like food and water and housing you would have no starving, no thirsty or homeless people. And that is one of the   principles of the Living Income Guaranteed proposal -  to make sure everybody has their basic human rights and actually  get what they need.