If you need an excuse to read more fiction, here it is! Reading fiction changes your brain–in a good way!
Inside Week 5 of What Do You Want?
This is the fifth guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She previously wrote about week 1, week 2, week 3, and week 4.
Now that we have gone through the entire four-week list of “What I really want is…” entries, sorting all the answers into as many categories as we seem to have, we are learning what kinds of things Big-Picture Wants are. Some things seem so important that they must be BPW’s, but upon reflection we find we can unpack them further—by asking again: why? Most of what we do gets us something, hopefully something positive, but is what we think we get out of it the real reason we find it worthwhile to do ?
Big-Picture Wants are the “ends,” the motivators of all our consciously determined behavior. They are not the automatic urges of System 1, the unconscious.
Probing reflection is a tool we use a lot here. Writing to answer the question why? sometimes leads to unexpected results. For instance, here is one of mine: To the question, “What is one thing you really want?” I answered: To have enough income so we don’t have to worry about money.
- Why? To be able to discharge our responsibilities to our children.
- Why? It is the right thing to do. My husband and I took on the assignment of helping these boys grow and learn and launch onto the seas of life.
- Why? The job of parents is to “show them the ropes” of life–even in the world of nature.
- Why? We want them to find that which makes them sing in their hearts, to be good, decent human beings, able and willing to help others and contribute to the world while supporting themselves.
This is a somewhat simplistic and incomplete exploration. I stopped there, yet can see it could have gone farther. The surprise for me is to see that while the One Thing I was probing was the desire to have more money, much of what I explain in the exploration of it either has nothing to do with money or has been accomplished without our having much money, anyway. Funny how I mislead myself without knowing I have done that.
Your Big-Picture Wants, by the way, are not some list Joycelyn or someone else came up with. They are YOURS. Once we will have identified at least most of our Big-Picture Wants, then we can use goals, habits, and intentions as the means to getting our Big Picture Wants.
For sure I can see that more money is not a Big-Picture Want. What we may want the money for, though, can point us to some Big-Picture Wants. The goal of “enough money not to have to worry about money” is a means to the ends, perhaps, of Love, Joy, Contribution, Purpose, and several others I can think of.
Know When to Get Assistance
If you work by yourself or live by yourself (or both), you already know how much there is to do and to keep track of every single day. When there’s no one else to pick up some of the slack, the sheer volume of it all can be overwhelming. Believing that you can and should be able to do it all will not make it so. But it can wear you down mentally, emotionally, and physically.
It will wear you down mentally because our brain provides us with a limited amount of conscious attention each day, and when we’ve used it up, we can’t just shift into another gear to get more. When you are trying to do it all, you may find yourself squandering your conscious attention on things that need to be done but that don’t further what you’re trying to accomplish in life. Too many days or weeks of this and you could begin to wonder if what you’re trying to accomplish is worth it or if you’ve really got what it takes.
It will wear you down emotionally because you will inevitably fall behind, miss a target or an actual deadline, or lose track of something. And then you’ll feel bad about it. You’ll feel bad about yourself. If you believe you should be able to do it all, you’ll feel guilty and incompetent when you don’t. If you’re the rugged individualist or self-reliant type, you’ll feel like you just need to work harder to keep on top of everything. Even worse, you could lose your sense of humor.
It will wear you down physically because trying to do everything is exhausting—whether or not you actually get everything done. Mental and emotional stress creates physical tension. You may let your self-care routines go—or at least skimp on them. No time to get to the gym, no time to prepare a healthy meal, no time for a vacation or even a break. You may develop a constant low-level state of anxiety you aren’t even aware of. Trying to do it all can stress your body, weaken your immune system, and make you physically ill.
If you’re in this kind of situation, the best thing you can do is get out of it as soon as possible.
Consider making a list of all the things you do or are responsible for that can only be done by you and another list of all the things that could possibly be done by someone else, even if you have to pay for having it done. You may think you’re saving money (or being self-reliant) by trying to do it all, but that approach can break your spirit. By trying to do it all, you put yourself in jeopardy of losing it all.
I fall into the self-reliant category, and my life-long tendency is to try to figure out how to do whatever has to be done and then do it myself. Sometimes that’s paid off. But even when it has, I’ve often ended up spending an inordinate amount of time learning about something plenty of other people already know how to do. When I do that, I eliminate the amount of time I can spend doing what I know how to do that others may not.
Within the past couple of months, however, I’ve loosened the reins and have begun getting some assistance in three areas: office/organizational, website, and recreational (seriously). I’m not yet taking full advantage of the assistance that’s available to me because old habits die hard. It requires my conscious attention to bypass the tendency to just do it myself. Yet I already feel an enormous sense of relief in realizing that I don’t have to hold up my entire world…all day…every day…ad infinitum.
[NOTE: This post is the sixth in a series. See also When the Going Gets Grueling, Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It, Focus: Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Patience: Learn to Play the Waiting Game, and Embrace Uncertainty.]
Inside Week 4 of What Do You Want?
This is the fourth guest post by Jean S., who is sharing her experience of participating the 6-week What Do You Want? course. She previously wrote about week 1, week 2 and week 3.
During this class we took some time to consider our personal responses to the oft-quoted Marianne Williamson statement: “There is no passion to be found in playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” Has this quote ever taken your breath away? Have you ever looked this quote in the eye and asked yourself which way you are living—with passion, or settling? Or what? And why?
I find that to think about “the life I am capable of living” versus the life I have lived so far is both scary and exciting at the same time. I think about how frequently I “play small,” rather than BE who I really am—magnificent and brilliant. I’m sure this is true of others.
Living with passion, I suspect, is what happens when we engage with even the little things in each day, rather than just to go along, get along, get by each day. When I bring my own, unique contribution into the world, it’s an offering that only I can give, which is energizing in its own way—for me and, perhaps, for the world around me.
You may find this sort of investigation leads to other questions. More questions lead to more thought and probably some insights. This is good! As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Well, you know how spreading that around ended for him. Watch out, Joycelyn.
Think You’re Thinking?
Much of what passes for thinking consists of unconscious, not conscious, mental processes. When it comes to taking in information and deciding what to believe and what not to believe, for example, we are appallingly predictable. We are most likely to believe:
What Is Familiar
Information that feels familiar is easier to absorb and believe than information that is unfamiliar. The information could be familiar because it’s associated with other beliefs we have or it could come from a trusted source. On the other hand, it could simply be something we’ve come across before—especially if we’ve come across it multiple times. Frequent repetition can be enough to convince people to believe things that are not true because familiarity generates a sense of cognitive ease. Called the mere-exposure effect, advertisers make use of it, but they aren’t the only ones.
Even if we’re aware of the mere-exposure effect, we probably think we’re immune to it because we’re more sophisticated than that. Believing we’re immune to it, however, might make us even more susceptible to it than we would be if we simply recognized it.
What Is Easy
Information that is easy to understand gives us a sense of cognitive ease. Information that is difficult to understand requires greater cognitive effort to process. Our brain prefers to chill out, so it just says “no” to exerting additional cognitive effort.
Say you’re faced with choosing between two concepts, ideas, or explanations. Idea A is easy to understand, while Idea B is more difficult. Statistically speaking, you’re much more likely to accept Idea A instead of Idea B simply because Idea A is easier for you to swallow. This is especially likely to be the case if you are already experiencing some degree of cognitive strain or if your conscious (System 2) attention is depleted. You’ve undoubtedly had the experience of feeling “brain dead” following a mentally fatiguing effort. That’s when you’re most susceptible to believing what is easy.
What Validates Our Preexisting Beliefs
Information that confirms what we already believe to be true makes us feel right and certain, so we’re likely to accept it uncritically. On the other hand, we’re more likely to reject information that is inconsistent with what we already believe. At the very least, we hold inconsistent information up to greater scrutiny. So we have different standards for evaluating information based on the level of cognitive ease it generates. And evidence has precious little impact on us if it conflicts with what we believe simply because the cognitive strain of processing it is too great.
The easy acceptance of information that validates what we already believe is a result of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias causes us to selectively notice and pay attention to what confirms our beliefs and to ignore what doesn’t. For example, people who favor gun control pay more attention to stories about injuries and deaths resulting from gun use; people who are against gun control pay more attention to stories about people using guns to defend themselves. Confirmation bias underlies the discomfort we feel around people who disagree with us and the ease we feel around people who share our beliefs [see What is Familiar and What is Easy, above].
It’s easy to believe what’s familiar, what’s easy to grasp, and what validates our pre-existing beliefs. No critical thinking or cognitive effort are required. On the other hand, actual thinking, as Dan Ariely says, is difficult and sometimes unpleasant.
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