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Well, if Albert Einstein Said It…

May 9, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Recently, I’ve come across several quotes attributed to Albert Einstein that sound more like something you would read in The Secret or another New Age book. So I attempted to track down a couple of them–as have many other equally suspicious individuals–and discovered that there are quite a few quotes out there that cannot be traced to Mr. Einstein.

The quote below originated with an individual who believes he channels an extra-terrestrial named Bashar.

Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.

The actual source seems to have been Bashar. But the quote wouldn’t get as much play if it was attributed to Bashar, since he doesn’t have Albert Einstein’s face or name recognition.

Einstein, however, seems to be getting fed up with all of these false attributions.

I didn’t create that one, but it would have been extremely easy to do.

Quotes are falsely attributed to Albert Einstein to give them an air of believably, respectability, and scientific authenticity. If Einstein said it, it must be true. It’s also easy to swallow something uncritically if it fits our already existing beliefs–well, especially if it fits our already existing beliefs.

Ideas should be judged on their own merits. If an idea or concept is “true” or worthwhile, it shouldn’t have to get traction by being falsely placed in the mouth of Albert Einstein. Besides, it isn’t really fair, is it? The man’s in no position to defend himself.

Curiouser and Curiouser

April 11, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 2 Comments

In his book, Waking Up, Charles Tart points out that most people, especially in the West, aren’t taught self-observation skills at an early age. What if we had spent as much time learning how to observe ourselves as we spent learning how to read?

I’m a fanatical reader, so I don’t say this lightly, but maybe self-observation skills are even more valuable than reading skills. In many ways, reading helps open up the outer world to us, but self-observation opens up our own inner world—which is no less vast, really.

These are a few things Tart has to say about self-observation.

It’s All Grist for the Mill

In its most general form, the practice of self-observation is simply a matter of paying attention to everything, noticing whatever happens, being open-mindedly curious about all that is going on. This everything will almost always be a mixture of perceptions of external events and your internal reactions to them. You should drop all a priori beliefs about what you should be interested in, what is important and not important. Whatever is is an appropriate focus for observation.

Three Ways to Pay Attention

This open-minded attention must be more than just intellectual attention. Remember that we are three-brained beings. Thus the attention we should strive to pay to our world and our selves is an emotional attention and a body attention as well as an intellectual attention.

Above All, Be Curious

The practice of self-observation…is the practice of being curious, along with a commitment to do your best to observe and learn whatever is there, regardless of your preferences or fears.

I have to keep reminding myself to stay curious about what is going on around me and within me. And also to stay curious about my own actions and reactions. It’s so much harder for me to get sucked into the drama, the compulsions, and the autopilot behavior when I’m able to maintain an attitude of curiosity about everything that’s happening.

My usual modus operandi is probably the same as everyone else’s. I operate on the assumption that there’s a way things should be and when things are going the way they should be going, all’s well. But more often than not, things do not go the way I think they should. And people do not behave the way I think they should. Even I don’t behave the way I think I should. And don’t get me started on the weather!

As an 8, when things are not going as I expect them to go, my resistance kicks in. That’s a perfect opportunity to wake up and pay attention. When I’m able to do that, I feel much lighter and more expansive. When I don’t or can’t do it, I dig myself deeper into my resistance. No good ever comes of that.

What kicks in for you when things aren’t going your way?

If I want to use the moments when my expectations rub up against the edge of reality to wake up, I have to have the intention to do so.

The practice of self-observation begins with a desire and resolution on your part: “I want to know what really is, regardless of how I prefer things to be.”

As per my previous post, self-observation is not for wimps. It isn’t easy to let go of our preconceived ideas about how the world should work. It’s hard to give up having a temper tantrum when we don’t get our way. Growing up can be painful at times.

If you diligently practice self-observation, you will see much that his painful and much that is joyful, but seeing more of reality will turn out to be highly preferable to living in fantasy. You will begin creating “something” in yourself, a quality, a function, a skill, akin to learning how the controls of your automated airliner work. And you will be pleasantly surprised at how much more there is to life.

More than Happy

March 31, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 1 Comment

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Those who pursue happiness tend to focus on feeling good and getting what they want in the short-term (satisfying drives). Happy people report less stress or worry. Animals can be happy, too. It’s been said that what sets humans apart from the animals is the pursuit of meaning. People who are more focused on meaning than on happiness are invested in something outside themselves. They tend to experience more stress and anxiety than happy people do, but the rub is that even when they are suffering, the people who have created meaning in their lives report a higher level of satisfaction than those who don’t have meaning in their lives.

Whether we aim for short-term rewards or keep our eyes on the long-term prize, all of us have two different decision-making systems, both of which are involved each time we have to make a decision or choice. System 1, which is more primitive, is associated with immediate gratification. It responds to sensory stimuli and directly involves the limbic system and our basic emotions. System 2 involves the prefrontal cortex and is responsible for long-range thinking and planning.

The Rowdy Couple Downstairs

Think of the brain as a two-story bungalow. The bottom or first floor got built first and contains a young and rowdy couple. They play loud music, throw wild parties and are up at all hours. Later a second-story extension got built on top and an older and more practical couple moved in. They like to tend the garden and pay off their mortgage. At times, the two couples agree about how the household should be run but, with such differences in values, there are plenty of disagreements. –Piers Steel, Ph.D.

If you don’t have something meaningful on which you are focused, most of your decisions are likely to be in the hands of the rowdy couple on the first floor. Even if you decide there’s something you want that requires foregoing immediate gratification, you may struggle with following through.

The reality is that even though so many people are in pursuit of it—especially in places like the U.S.—happiness can be elusive. For one thing, happiness is an emotion, and by its nature, transient. For another pursuing personal happiness is associated with selfishness and being a “taker,” while pursuing or creating meaning is associated with being a “giver.”

If you focus on creating meaning in your life, you are likely to be more satisfied. Happiness may or may not be a byproduct. If you focus on pursuing happiness, you will presumably be happy, but less satisfied. If it’s the pursuit of meaning that makes us uniquely human, then pursing happiness doesn’t seem like the best path for humans to be on.

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to “be happy.” –Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

What Gets in the Way

March 28, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

What keeps us from achieving the things we want or even set out to achieve? Science writer David DiSalvo (What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite) seems to like why questions—which I’m on record as opposing. He wrote an article for Forbes titled “The 10 Reasons Why We Fail,” which he describes as reflections on falling short—more precisely, why we fail despite ourselves.

Two of his reasons—the first and last, as it happens—really resonate for me based on my own experience and the experiences of friends and acquaintances.

You Don’t Believe You Can Do It

Luke: I can’t believe it.
Yoda: That is why you fail.

The crucial part of Yoda’s dialogue with Luke is “believe.” The human brain is a powerful problem-solving and prediction making machine, and it operates via a multitude of feedback loops. What matters most in the feedback loop dynamic is input—what goes into the loop that begins the analysis-evaluation-action process, which ultimately results in an outcome. Here’s the kicker: if your input shuttle for achieving a goal lacks the critical, emotionally relevant component of belief, then the feedback loop is drained of octane from the start. Another way to say that is—why would you expect a convincingly successful outcome when you haven’t convinced yourself that it’s possible?

Believing you can do something is a precursor to intentionally changing or initiating a habit. If you start out believing you can’t do it, you will more than likely fulfill that prophecy.

You’re Confused about What to Do

Of all of these 10 ideas, this one is to me the most difficult because it plagues me almost constantly. Gearing up the cerebral feedback loop for achievement is one thing, but without a sense of focus and direction, all of that energy isn’t going to yield very much in the end. My experience has been that sometimes you have to let the energy flow for a while without too firm a sense of direction and see if focus emerges organically. Once it does, you can then nurture it into a more structured method for getting where you want to go.

Confusion abounds, especially when people think they ought to know what to do and where to go, but don’t. There are several ways to prime the pump to gain some clarity about what to do next. Often, however, we and our brains are so frantically busy going in whatever direction we’re going that we can’t slow down enough to realize we don’t actually know what the heck we’re doing.

The Way of Habits

February 24, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell Leave a Comment

New Year's Resolution — 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.