Posts Tagged ‘Fear’

Inception

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Inception has been out for some time now, and has received raving reviews, so if you have not seen it, definitely treat yourself to this awesome movie! Much like one can draw a lot of parallels between The Matrix and how our reality is simply our perception of something that can be very different, Inception also offers many such thought-provoking elements. I personally really enjoyed how the movie talked about ‘an idea’, and how it can be the most resilient thing in existence, which can grow to define you or to destroy you.

I also appreciated how they talked about the sub-conscious, it’s power, our inability to control most aspects of it, and how ideas planted in the sub-conscious can take hold. Very cool stuff indeed! You can look at that from many different angles of understanding of what the sub-conscious mind is and what it does, and the movie will likely resonate with your view.

But to come back to the concept of ‘an idea’. It, undoubtedly, is very powerful. It is the starting point of everything in our lives. Our personalities, behaviours, goals, and fears are all based on different ideas. Once we get an idea firmly planted in our mind, there are mechanisms in our brain that are designed to keep it there and give it nourishment – and this has been scientifically shown. This movie was a good reminder for me to re-examine what kind of ideas are driving my life.

Until next time,

V

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Always The ‘End Of The World’?

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

If you look at the projections for the world we live in, you may wonder whether we will actually witness the ‘end of the world’. Between the earthquakes and the floods, the financial and economic meltdowns, the growing income gap between social classes and the disappearing middle class, the environmental disasters and global warming, the drying of oil wells and rising costs of energy, the shortage of food and lack of fresh water, the ballooning population growth and the strain on Earth’s resources, as well as the end of Mayan calendar, we very well may be in for quite a ride! My question is, and this is aimed at the more experienced life readers, has it always been like this?

Sure, the world currently looks pretty messed up from some angles, but then even in the last 100 years we went through two World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War, spikes in oil prices, stock market crashes, weather changes, and a number of other challenges. I’m sure that the outlook wasn’t too bright when the fear of Red Commies nuking the world was gripping the West. Do you think humans are just wired to scream ‘the end of the world’ like Chicken Little?

Until next time,

V

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Measuring Progress

Tuesday, August 10th, 2010

Changes often happen in our lives so slowly that we don’t even notice the progress. It’s only when we look back to a time in our distant (or maybe not so distant) past that we get an idea of how far we have gone and how much we have changed.

Kids provide a good example. Parents typically don’t see how much their kids really grow and change. Friends of family who tend to visit once or twice a year really notice the difference. It’s that same with many other areas in life.

Whenever you try something new, it is difficult at first, and obviously gets easier as you do it more. The only way to appreciate your growth is to have a frame of reference to where you were in the past. Seeing the growth serves as a good reminder of where you have been and provides motivation to keep moving forward. So find a way to keep track of your progress – it will help you appreciate where you are and will serve as the fuel to keep trucking along.

Until next time,

V

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Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | No Comments »

What Others Think

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

My advise – don’t worry so much about what other people think. I wrote several times on fear and how it is usually the primary offender in keeping us from taking action. I think, and I hope that you’ll agree, that a big component of fear is our concern about what others will think of our choices and our actions. Another way to think about it, is to consider how you would feel about a given choice if you knew, with absolute confidence, that no one would ever know about its success or failure. Whenever I try that to think about it that way, a lot of the fear goes away. But that is not what I want to talk about today.

We established that people care a great deal about what others think of them, which contributes to the feelings of fear, that I am sure we have all experienced. The interesting thing is that as you, and me, and my neighbour, and your friend, and your friend’s friend, and everyone else worries about what others think of them, they do not leave much time for worrying about others. That is where the notion that ‘you are the person who cares most about you’ comes from. Following that logic, it seems that people don’t really care that much about the choices of others, but they think that everyone else cares about their choices. What that says to me is that I should not care so much about what other think about my choices, since they likely won’t think much of them anyway.

Does that make sense? Your thoughts?

Until next time,

V

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Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 1 Comment »

Getting Passed Fear

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Whatever way you spin it, at the end of the day it is fear that prevents you from doing something new and keeps you stuck in doing the same things that you are used to – time after time after time. People say a lot of things about fear, like how it is ‘False Evidence that Appears Real’, but I’m not going to get into that now. What I’d rather draw your attention to is to the fact things are never as bad as you fear and the effects are rarely permanent. More often than not, what you fear is a lot less scary and does not even have a lasting effect on you.

Studies on happiness show that people return to their usual level of happiness after about 1 month in 90+% of cases. With other things, like winning a lottery or losing the ability to use your legs (see Dan Gilbert’s talk on happiness on TED), people still return to their normal level of happiness, it just takes a little longer (and losing use of your legs is a permanent thing).

Essentially we always find a way back to our point of happiness equilibrium, so if you don’t take a risk because you fear some ugly outcome that will ruin the rest of your life, just know that it is not so – you’ll be back to your regular self soon enough.

Until next time,

V

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Posted in Psychology, Success, Taking Action | 5 Comments »