Motivation continued
This is the continuation of the post I wrote earlier today, titled: motivation.
After that blog, I can just hear people saying, "but I am motivated by competition", as though it was an unalterable fact of life. I do not argue with the fact that most people today are mostly motivated by competition/money and all the rest; my argument is with the idea that your nature is fixed in stone! Not so. You are the product of your unbringing, and you can choose to be the product of your own will. You can use the same conditioning that made you what you are, to make you what you want to be
I remember an old BBC TV series called: CIVILISATION. The writer/presenter, Kenneth Clerk (or was it Clerke, or Clark?), started off the series by attempting to define what civilisation/art is. He said that he could not define it, but that he knew it when he saw it! All he was really saying, was that he had a taste for the kind of thing he was brought up with.
I was brought up in a place where hot spices, curry, were still quite exotic, but available. Once in a while mother would make a curry, but I always asked for, and got, my serving cooked separately without the spices. Thus, I never developed a taste for curry. On the other hand, when I first tasted olives, though I found the taste quite disgusting, I was very attracted to the idea of olives, the food of the mediteranean cultures, and one that was supposed to be very good for the health. So I persisted in nibbling away at them, just little nibbles, from time to time, and, lo and behold, within a couple of years my taste buds had been so educated that they now found olives to be the food of the gods, sheer nectar!
All tastes, whether for food, activities, art or whatever, are just as educatable.
For an interesting article on how belief affects ones life, I would refer readers to the website: hathayogalesson.com. Under their section MIND, they have a subsection: BELIEF. This is worth a read.
Why are people on this country mostly Christian? Because they were brought up in a Christian environment. Why are most Asian Indians Hindu? Likewise. How does a Christian become Hindu? They choose to change their beliefs.
Most people believe competitiveness is fundamental to human nature, and thus to their own. They can choose to believe otherwise. Most people believe they have a certain personality, and tastes and talents etc. They can choose to believe otherwise.
And by making that choice they make the actuality happen.
This is the nature of the self-fulfilling prophecy.
But, to get down to the nuts and bolts. How does one bring about such change? I suppose you could say, : mind over matter!
In Robert Browning's poem, MY LAST DUCHESS, the Duke of Ferara criticises his late wife thus: 'she liked what'er she looked on, And her looks went everywhere.'
So let us take it that that is where we want to be: to be able to go anywhere, do anything, to be free of all restrictions imposed by upbringing and belief.
But, life is full of things you are not interested in, places you do not want to go, people you do not want to know. So much seems pointless. Someone says, "how about we go/do/see.....", and you say, "why would I want to?" And, you feel a certain lack of interest, or even a positive disinclination. Well, you are just responding to the voices of your past, your parents/peers/teachers/cultural heros, are ringing in your subconscious ears, and they generate the feeling of disinclination/disinterest.
So, the answer is simple: replace the old voices with a new voice, your own voice. When that word 'why' comes up in response to an invitation, whatever you might feel, say the words: 'because I want to.'
But that is not the end, because, if you do something you have been brought up to think poorly of, the voices will be working away all the time to rubbish the activity, and it can be quite a struggle to keep going. Here you must believe that it is not you that does not like this activity. Tell yourself that you really like this, and find reasons to like it.
By doing this, you are, in fact, beginning to exercise what is true human nature. The is nothing in this world which has any innate beauty/goodness/usefulness. It is part of what it is to be human to be able to see beauty/goodness/usefulness in things.
After that blog, I can just hear people saying, "but I am motivated by competition", as though it was an unalterable fact of life. I do not argue with the fact that most people today are mostly motivated by competition/money and all the rest; my argument is with the idea that your nature is fixed in stone! Not so. You are the product of your unbringing, and you can choose to be the product of your own will. You can use the same conditioning that made you what you are, to make you what you want to be
I remember an old BBC TV series called: CIVILISATION. The writer/presenter, Kenneth Clerk (or was it Clerke, or Clark?), started off the series by attempting to define what civilisation/art is. He said that he could not define it, but that he knew it when he saw it! All he was really saying, was that he had a taste for the kind of thing he was brought up with.
I was brought up in a place where hot spices, curry, were still quite exotic, but available. Once in a while mother would make a curry, but I always asked for, and got, my serving cooked separately without the spices. Thus, I never developed a taste for curry. On the other hand, when I first tasted olives, though I found the taste quite disgusting, I was very attracted to the idea of olives, the food of the mediteranean cultures, and one that was supposed to be very good for the health. So I persisted in nibbling away at them, just little nibbles, from time to time, and, lo and behold, within a couple of years my taste buds had been so educated that they now found olives to be the food of the gods, sheer nectar!
All tastes, whether for food, activities, art or whatever, are just as educatable.
For an interesting article on how belief affects ones life, I would refer readers to the website: hathayogalesson.com. Under their section MIND, they have a subsection: BELIEF. This is worth a read.
Why are people on this country mostly Christian? Because they were brought up in a Christian environment. Why are most Asian Indians Hindu? Likewise. How does a Christian become Hindu? They choose to change their beliefs.
Most people believe competitiveness is fundamental to human nature, and thus to their own. They can choose to believe otherwise. Most people believe they have a certain personality, and tastes and talents etc. They can choose to believe otherwise.
And by making that choice they make the actuality happen.
This is the nature of the self-fulfilling prophecy.
But, to get down to the nuts and bolts. How does one bring about such change? I suppose you could say, : mind over matter!
In Robert Browning's poem, MY LAST DUCHESS, the Duke of Ferara criticises his late wife thus: 'she liked what'er she looked on, And her looks went everywhere.'
So let us take it that that is where we want to be: to be able to go anywhere, do anything, to be free of all restrictions imposed by upbringing and belief.
But, life is full of things you are not interested in, places you do not want to go, people you do not want to know. So much seems pointless. Someone says, "how about we go/do/see.....", and you say, "why would I want to?" And, you feel a certain lack of interest, or even a positive disinclination. Well, you are just responding to the voices of your past, your parents/peers/teachers/cultural heros, are ringing in your subconscious ears, and they generate the feeling of disinclination/disinterest.
So, the answer is simple: replace the old voices with a new voice, your own voice. When that word 'why' comes up in response to an invitation, whatever you might feel, say the words: 'because I want to.'
But that is not the end, because, if you do something you have been brought up to think poorly of, the voices will be working away all the time to rubbish the activity, and it can be quite a struggle to keep going. Here you must believe that it is not you that does not like this activity. Tell yourself that you really like this, and find reasons to like it.
By doing this, you are, in fact, beginning to exercise what is true human nature. The is nothing in this world which has any innate beauty/goodness/usefulness. It is part of what it is to be human to be able to see beauty/goodness/usefulness in things.
posted by joan @ 4:31 AM
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