Explanation separates us from astonishment, which is the only gateway to the incomprehensible. —Eugene Ionesco
I haven’t tracked this down, but I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said humans are cursed with explaining ourselves to ourselves. More often than not, any old explanation will do, as long as it can be woven into the fabric of our ongoing personal narrative.
It is a curse, a burden, a pointless exercise, and more than a habit. It’s an addiction. It separates us from our experience, too. We can’t be both explaining and aware at the same time.
But where—and who—would we be without our explanations? I think that’s one of those questions worth asking.
Buddha is supposed to have described our minds as resembling a drunken monkey that’s been stung by a bee. The monkey mind—whether or not drunk, whether or not bee-stung—is a restless mind. It chatters incessantly, shifts from thought to thought, is easily distracted, undisciplined, and most importantly confused. Sounds a lot like ADD or ADHD, but really this pretty much describes all of us to one extent or another. It’s just that many of us are in denial about it. We think we—not some passel of drunken monkeys—are in charge.
There’s not much evidence to support that belief, however. What neuroscience increasingly reports is that our brains are doing far, far more than we ever imagined they were doing. Not only are they keeping us physically alive, they’re directing our thoughts, feelings, and actions. The majority of our “choices” take place at the unconscious level. We only think we’re in the director’s chair because we’re so darn good at spinning yarns to explain why we just did what we did, thought what we thought, or felt what we felt. We are, as one author has called humans, the storytelling animal.
Each of us undertakes the same major creative project, which is the story of ourselves. It’s a constantly evolving work-in-progress into which we weave everything we do, no matter how seemingly inexplicable those things may be. It’s our nature to create this story, so we’re very good at it. So good, in fact, that our audience isn’t even aware of the fiction. Those are the best kinds of stories, right? The problem is that our audience is us.
[T]he intuitive feeling we have that there’s an executive “I” that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. Consciousness turns out to consist of a maelstrom of events distributed across the brain. These events compete for attention, and as one process outshouts the others, the brain rationalizes the outcome after the fact and concocts the impression that a single self was in charge all along.—Steven Pinker
Our stories help us maintain the fiction that we’re in charge. So instead of recognizing and accounting for the vast expanses over which we are not in charge, we continue merrily along, spinning our tall tales.
It isn’t that we’re never authentic, never conscious, always asleep at the switch. From time to time, we are conscious, maybe some more than others. But the irony is that because we think we’re already always in charge—already always making conscious choices—most of us never learn how to become more awake and aware, never discover how to increase our ability to set our own course and make it so. Why bother learning how to do something when we’ve already mastered it?
Intention is one of those words that has to cover a lot of ground. By that I mean we tend not to make very good distinctions when we use it. Intention can refer to anything from our most informal plans all the way up to major goals and even life purpose. More often, though, intention gets the casual treatment.
I intended to do it, but didn’t because…
I didn’t intend for X to happen.
I intend to take care of that this afternoon.
There’s nothing wrong with using intention that way, but it does rob the word of power. Do our intentions amount to nothing more than completing tasks on our to-do lists? While I don’t want to downplay the value of completing things and doing what we say we’re going to do, there’s more to intention than that.
I don’t think it works to approach making a difference in the world the same way we approach dealing with meeting a deadline. But I suspect we often do. Maybe the result of treating all of our intentions equally is that we end up with an equally weak commitment to following through on them.
Since an intention to gas up the car on the way home from work, an intention to improve one’s bad habits, and an intention to create a meaningful life are not all of the same order, having a way to distinguish among them might be useful. We could refer to our day-to-day intentions as lowercase intentions and our larger, purpose-driven intentions—the ones that require our conscious choice—as uppercase intentions.
As it turns out, defining, declaring, and attending to uppercase intentions makes it so much easier to follow through on lowercase intentions.
Journal writing is such a beneficial practice in so many different ways. One of the things it can help with is clearing the clutter that inevitably fills our minds. It can help clarify intentions or goals and then assist us in staying on track. It can also aid in sorting through confusion, deal with difficulties—even trauma—and help us develop more calmness and serenity.
Writing daily, even for as little as 10 minutes, can do all that and more. There is certainly nothing wrong with just writing whatever occurs to you or is bothering you or comes out of the end of your pen. But having a focus makes journal writing even more powerful. Starting out with some kind of question or writing prompt, maybe just a keyword or key phrase, focuses your mind, which allows you to get in touch with whatever is swimming below your surface thoughts. And using a multi-part exercise can help you go deeper to reap even greater rewards.
The keys to writing toward clarity are:
Regularity
Some people find it easier to write every day when they attach their journaling to another activity or to a specific time of day. Do whatever works for you.
Focus
If you can’t immediately come up with a keyword, key phrase, or anything specific to focus on, try sitting quietly for a few minutes to see what shows up. Go with that, even if it doesn’t “make sense” in the moment.
Depth
A simple three-part exercise is to write a question at the top of a blank page and write in response to it for 8-12 minutes. Reread what you wrote, select a sentence or phrase, and write it at the top of another blank page. Write in response to it for 8-12 minutes. Finally, reread both pieces, find a question (either one you asked in your writing or one that occurs to you now), write it at the top of a blank page, and write in response to it for 8-12 minutes. Then reread all three pieces.
There’s such a wealth of journal writing resources in books, journals, and on the internet that you don’t have to worry about running out of ideas to spark your writing.
New Year’s Resolution (Photo credit: AlaskaTeacher)
Just as trying to make the one right and perfect choice is a hopeless task that’s likely to leave you mildly dissatisfied at best and exhausted, confused, and depressed at worst, there’s probably no one right and perfect way to change or begin habits. I’m a big fan of Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit) because his ideas make sense, are backed by research, and they work (I’ve used them). The more you know about how the habit loop works, the better your chances are of succeeding in having the habits you want and not having the habits you don’t want.
Another idea, however, is to make very, very small changes. This idea is explained by Leo Babauta in his blog Zen Habits:
Actually doing the habit is much more important than how much you do.
If you want to exercise, it’s more important that you actually do the exercise on a regular basis, rather than doing enough to get a benefit right away. Sure, maybe you need 30 minutes of exercise to see some fitness improvements, but try doing 30 minutes a day for two weeks. See how far you get, if you haven’t been exercising regularly. Then, if you don’t succeed, try 1-2 minutes a day. See how far you get there.
If you can do two weeks of 1-2 minutes of exercise, you have a strong foundation for a habit. Add another week or two, and the habit is almost ingrained. Once the habit is strong, you can add a few minutes here and there. Soon you’ll be doing 30 minutes on a regular basis — but you started out really small….
Your mileage will vary, but on average most people get farther with a habit when they start small. One glass of water a day. One extra vegetable. Three pushups. One sentence of writing a day. Two minutes of meditation. This is how you start a habit that lasts.
I think this method can work if you’re especially resistant to doing something or if you tend to overreach, fail, give up–and repeat the cycle.
But sometimes there’s a greater urgency to the situation. You don’t have time to go slow and small. You need to change and you need to do it now. When you recognize and accept the urgency, you may be surprised at how quickly you can change your habits. But that’s the key: recognizing and accepting the need to change, to either start doing something you weren’t doing or start doing something differently.
So rather than trying to figure out the best way to start or change a habit–any habit–you may first need to clarify some other things, such as how important this particular thing is to you, how urgent it is to deal with, what your past experience (if any) has been with it, and what your own personal inclinations and tendencies are. Then use that criteria to select a habit-starting or habit-changing method.
