Realizations are very powerful. They inspire our feelings, stir our thoughts and trigger our (re) actions. During a lifetime of unique experiences, learned behaviors and conditioned responses we have developed a certain outlook on life, a way of looking at ourselves and other people. It is those views or realizations which have created the world, the reality we live in. Most of those realizations we hold within are negative, destructive, self-limiting and irrational, but instead of changing our views in positive and constructive ways most of us seek for change in the outside world.
This is very understandable if we take a closer look at how our early realizations about life were formed, and how they affect our basic human structure.
We here in the West live in a predominantly production and consumption oriented society, and we human beings with our innate human endowments have become a tool subservient to the socio economic interest of the state, motivated by the promise of consumption and freedom of choice. As soon as we begin on the path of formal education we are instilled with the following message: Life is an investment which should yield the highest outcome, and in order to become successful we need to put our feelings, which are basically seen as a sign of weakness aside, work really hard and strive to produce desirable results and outcomes. As long as we are doing what is required of us, and as long as we are doing what we are supposed to do we are promised the freedom of choice, the freedom of speech, and the freedom to live our lives the way we choose to.
While we are busy dealing with external pressure and expectations our innate humanity goes through a process of radical transformation:
Slowly over time we loose our ability to think for ourselves since we are too busy taking notes and memorizing facts. Our natural wonder and curiosity which we all possess as children, our desire to understand and to explore the world on our own terms gets lost in the process of formal education with its emphasize on obedience, conformity and living up to external expectations. We cease to be amazed about life, external pressure replaces internal activity and interest, and we become alienated from our innate human powers. Learning for example, something that is a very natural element of what it means to be alive. Just observing young children reveals their innate interest, wonder and desire to understand themselves and life in general becomes a routine, something one has to do in order to make the grade or to pass a test; it no longer stems from our innate interest, ceases to be something one wants to do, but becomes a function on has to fulfill. Most all of our natural human endowments go through the process of external conditioning, they become alienated from ourselves and take on the form of something mechanical and artificial.
How our personality orientation changes as a result of social conditioning.
Since we are required to live up to and are measured against a great number of external rules and guidelines we begin to look for what we need or want in the world outside of ourselves. An overemphasize of external goals and rewards, on achievement, producing, consuming, competing and performing, all of which are essential elements of our marketing society instills within us the dangerous and misleading idea that life is not only about the pursuit of happiness and meaning, but also the accumulation of more and more things and possessions. As a result of that, many of us develop very early in life an identity that is based upon what we have, what gives our lives meaning like certain beliefs, values, viewpoints and opinions, a life style, prestige, social status, level of education, material possessions or outward appearance.
From that moment on we basically remain unchanged, do not question anymore our views and opinions since we are busy defending that which we stand for. It is then that our primary focus about personal change has developed: We seek to change that which we do not want or like in our lives such as our jobs, earn more money, gain a higher degree of external success, find friends who are less annoying and make us feel better about ourselves, and live in a more stimulating and positive environment where we have the freedom to live our lives the way we want to. In other words, our main focus in to seek change in the external.
A paradigm shift of tremendous proportions concerning personal
change
As we are all busy trying to pursue that which we seek
out of life we fail to realize that there is another kind of freedom, one which
cannot be granted or taken away, nor is it dependent on the conditions and circumstances
of our lives, but only can be generated from within:
More than the freedom
from restraints, pressure, stress, inequality and obligation,
more than the capacity to exercise choice or free will
this is the freedom to develop our potentialities and faculties to the highest degree possible,
the freedom to think for ourselves,
to be
unique, creative, interested, reasonable,
happy, loving, caring, assertive, and understanding,
This is the kind of personal freedom
which can allow us to become fully human (e) and alive.
Let me
now present you with the first
realization, one which encapsulates the main theme of our future studies
concerning personal change.