A friend was visiting the city for work and I got to catch up with him last night for a coffee and a chat. We have been good friends since pretty much the month I arrived in Finland, which is almost twenty years ago, so suffice to say, we know each other pretty well and can talk about anything together. While there were many topics that came up, especially around the economy (he is high up in Finance of a large Pharmaceutical), we also talked about a lot of personal things, like various points of self-improvement.
As part of my recovery after the stroke, my work doctor recently recommended visiting a psychologist to talk through some of the challenges I am having. This isn't to improve them, rather more to better come to terms with them and develop alternate strategies on how to manage my life, which is largely the same as it was prior, but I am not the same at all. It is like inhabiting someone else's mind, like one of those "body swap" movies.
My friend was skeptical as to whether it would help him, because essentially, all that is happening is a kind of guided reflection, where they aren't telling anything, but more extracting what is inside through questions. And of course, like me too, I can do that for myself.
However...
Over the years I have also realized that try as I might, some parts of my psyche are closed off to me, because my brain just doesn't want to go there, so it develops strategies to not, rather than feel the pain or discomfort. However, once those blockages are removed and a light is shone into those dark corners (they needn't be huge things even), there is the chance to discover and then change patterns in life that might be hindering progress.
My friend was still skeptical.
I asked him,
If you could go back and tell 15 year old you something that would help you be a better version of yourself today, what would it be?
(I took financial advice of the table in this scenario)
He thought for a moment, but didn't answer anything concrete. So I added,
Do you think knowing what you know now about women, would have improved your life at 15?
Yes.
Ok. But what you know now, could have been known then, if you had explored the topic enough and then reflected on yourself to remove all of those childish blockages that hinder opportunity. So, what makes you think that thirty years later, you don't have other blockages that aren't holding you back from being your best self now?
Similarly, there are a whole lot of other factors that a teen would put weight on, that aren't actually that important in the grand scheme of things, once there is a little distance and perspective. For example, while my friends were complaining about the curfew their parents gave them, I was being told by my doctor I might not make it through a flight for a second opinion.
But, we all do this and not matter what age we are, we think we are doing the right thing, because why would we do the wrong thing? And the older we get, it feels even more right, because we have been doing the same thing for so long that it is engrained habit, and we wouldn't be doing the wrong thing for so long, would we?
So much of our world is counterintuitive, because our intuition is largely built on our experiences and our awareness and evaluation of them. Yet, it doesn't care if the experience wasn't ideal, or our evaluation and subsequent drawn conclusions were incorrect, it uses them to build the heuristics anyway. And then when the patters arise that kick our reactive habits into gear, it feels right, no matter how wrong it is.
But, if we could go back and change something in us in our youth, we might be in a profoundly different set of conditions now. Similarly to the "Buy Bitcoin" statement many people make if they could go back in time, there are fundamental parts of our personality that would have entirely changed our experiences in life. It could be as simple as choosing a better diet, or instead of caring what everyone though, learn to be bold enough to show talents. It could be to pick up an interpersonal skill like active listening, or maybe, be more open to the possibility that even though we might feel right, we could be wrong.
What change would make you a better version of you?
In ten years from now, I wonder if you look back to a change you could have made today, what would it be? Would you be so happy with your life and who you are, that you think that you would change nothing? Isn't that hubris?
While we might be the best version of ourselves in any given moment, that doesn't mean we are the best version we could be, had we made some positive changes in moments past. And while we can't make those changes retroactively, we can identify, eliminate and replace, the patterns of behavior that are getting in the way of us being a better of version of ourselves in the future. Or at least, we can make an active attempt with intention.
But if we can't even identify what our patterns are because our own minds and bodies are sabotaging attempts made, by blocking the from view, how can we start to change? And, in a world where there is less chance to have these things brought to our attention through social interaction with friends, family and random people, we have even less chance of seeing the patterns.
Then on top of this, we also live in a content bubble where we search for and find what we like, and based on what we consume, get suggested more that we like, meaning there is very little conflict with our world view. And, just look at the behavior of most people online when they come across what they don't want to see and you will recognize, the will remove it from view. So if this is what we do when things get uncomfortable, how well are we truly reflecting on ourselves and what opportunities are we missing?
When I was fifteen, I knew everything.
Nothing has changed.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
