Influence your world by making it influence you

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." - Jiddu Krishnamurti

Okay, all though I’m still a bit late on my posting, I am now going to making an effort, break out of some nasty, lazy, habits and begin to push towards making more frequent blog posts.  I will also avoid slacking and putting up half assed writing for the sake of my readers and myself.  I wouldn’t want to compromise the integrity of my blog.

This post will be more focused on habits once again and how we can truly change them once and for all.  Just like any species, we are no different.  Humans adapt to their environment.  Plants with little sunlight will not grow well.  Birds in the winter migrate south.  Likewise, people in cold weather wear jackets and typically eat more meat.  The world is synergetic and everything is interlaced.  We cannot separate anything for everything else.  Now that being said, I’m sure you can see where this is leading.  The easiest and most effective way for someone to experience a paradigm shift, pick up, or drop a bad or good habit is to change their environment.  Is the environment you live in reinforcing your current habits?  Think about this question.  For example, let’s say someone were to live in a typical home with lots of TV, internet, video games and leisure available.  Is that a stimulating environment for doing homework?  Compare that to something like the library which is a very stimulating and reinforces something like doing homework or studying.  Now that was a very simple example, but the same can be applied to very complex issues.  This is why home gyms are statistically low in effectiveness versus commercial gyms.  At home, there are more distractions when it comes to working out.

Altering our immediate environment to get quick results may seem like it’s “cheating”, but there is no such thing as cheating.  Whatever gets the job done without any major or long term negative consequence is more than acceptable.  For example; I stopped buying video games because I was noticing their long term negative consequences.  While they are fun and give me short term pleasure, they were one of the main causes for me neglecting certain responsibilities.  Certainly discipline and a great mindset helped too, but the games not being available to me when I had the urge ultimately sealed the deal.  Think about it.  If an alcoholic trying to get over drinking was in a place that had a lot of alcohol available versus a place with very hard access, which will help the alcoholic in the process of recovering?  If someone is afraid of approaching women, what will get them over that fear quicker?  Being around more women and an environment that reinforces interaction with women or being home on Facebook?  The examples are endless, but I think it’s pretty clear now of how big of an impact the conditions of a particular environment, whether simple or complex will have in assisting our development of habits, skills and experiences. 

What we can’t imagine today or tomorrow will become practical once we try it out.  It is only when we experience the process (and in some cases getting use to) can we truly understand the functionality of a specific trait, mechanism, or idea.  That is the essence of a paradigm shift.  To give a clearer example of a paradigm shift, here is a short, true story from one of my favorite books, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”.

An American navy ship in the Canadian waters detects something on the radar and the following is true dialogue or what happened.

Americans: "Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision."

Canadians: "Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision."

Americans: "This is the captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course."

Canadians: "No, I say again, you divert YOUR course."

Americans: "THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH. THAT'S ONE-FIVE DEGREES NORTH, OR COUNTER MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP."

Canadians: "This is a lighthouse. Your call."

Can you imagine how huge of a paradigm shift occurred after the captain of the US Navy ship heard that last part?  I'll end today's blog short and hopefully have another one up pretty soon. 

 

This Week’s Challenge: Try and meet at least two new people this week and hang out with them the following week.  They must be completely new people.