How A single Habit defines the course of your life
Carl Jung once stated, that until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our life and we call it fate. I’d like to adress a destructive habit, that’s deeply embedded in our coulture, yet very few are aware of.
You are lazy
You are a racist
You are not the smartest
Recognize the curses
Whether our inner voice repeatedly chants these curses or the people around us: we say so, because we are accustomed to it. But guess what? In 99% of these cases itˋs simply not true.
Picture this: When somebody safes the lives of 100 children from human trafficking, but killed one human being a week ago, is this someone inherently good or bad? Hard to judge, right?
What if the killed human was a pregnant mother? What if this pregnant mother had viciously killed a happily married couple before? What if this pregnant mother was the partner in crime of the men responsible for trafficking hundreds of children? Let’s stop here.
We're bad judges, when it comes to complex moral questions
Especially since our brain tend to simplify decision-making. Our brains are hardwired to simplify decisions, to help us navigating life efficiently. And this is the big problem, whether we label abortion as “anti-life” or watching TV as “lazy”. It’s not that simple.
If you completed a 500 piece jigsaw-puzzle with your partner and two were blue, would you say the whole puzzle is predominantly blue? Probably not. Because you know and see, that 498 other pieces are a different color. And this is the idea I’d like to invite you to consider:
Just because you are unaware of all the actions you or someone else did in the past 24 hours, 4 weeks, 6 months, it doesn't mean you are defined by a single event.
If we finally transition from defining events or people (escpecialy ourselves) with little to no evidence to recognizing the bigger picture, something magical can happen.
Not only will you lead a more productive, happier and sorrow-less life, on top you will avoid many many conflicts with yourself and others.
Your mind starts to open up
Gradually you will become open to askking yourself:
“OK, this happened. What’s the deeper cause and how can we prevent it in the future? instead of blaming yourself with thoughts like
“damn you lazy wit, did you just watch 3 episodes of Games Of Thrones, when you knew you had something else to do?”
Suddenly you will strive to understand your friend, family member, or stranger rather than pigenhole fellow human beings as “anti-life” or “disloyal”.
A whole new way of living is possible when we relentlessly ask ourselves:
Does this one moment truly define me?
Does this one opinion really define you?