Here’s a thought for me today. Work is currently where I am fighting hand-to-hand combat with self, swallowing some bitter chunks of truth.
Jordan Peterson on Abraham and Isaac:
We’ll start with a truism, stark, self-evident and understated: Sometimes things do not go well. That seems to have much to do with the terrible nature of the world, with its plagues and famines and tyrannies and betrayals. But here’s the rub: sometimes, when things are not going well, it’s not the world that’s the cause. The cause is instead that which is currently most valued, subjectively and personally. Why? Because the world is revealed, to an indeterminate degree, through the template of your values (much more on this in Rule 10). If the world you are seeing is not the world you want, therefore, it’s time to examine your values. It’s time to rid yourself of your current presuppositions. It’s time to let go. It might even be time to sacrifice what you love best, so that you might become who you might become, instead of staying who you are.
12 Rules for Life, page 170. Emphasis in original.
What you like (your values, preferences, things you choose to do and own) will influence what you see in the world. This is the reticular activation system so beloved of self-help gurus. Think of “red” for instance, and all of a sudden you will see red things everywhere. (I remember David Allen doing that once.)
What you like (or dislike—it’s the same thing, just in a different direction) not only helps you see what you want to see (or don’t want to see), it motivates you to action in response. And your actions cause a result.
That’s the idea. The universe is not randomly throwing meteors at you (though it might). The universe is not placing people in your life who hate you.
No. It’s much more likely that the ideas you cling to most are affecting your perception (“she hates me” is believed, without evidence, just completely in your head because you have ideas about how lovable you are). This thought in turn motivates your actions (“well, I will reject her first, because she obviously hates me and this relationship is doomed”) and then life develops accordingly (“I am lonely”).
At work. What’s the deep idea that’s holding me back? That’s preventing me from being all that is possible for me?
Hiring. Working with others. Relying on others. It’s in there, somewhere. Cloaked in self-reliance and industriousness, but it’s there—some kind of rugged individualism mode which has served me well but should be balanced with other attributes. Social, communal, cooperative attributes.
Yikes. Assume this thought has some truth. I just let it out of my head and into my thumbs without editing or coaching. All I tried to do was be as precise as possible in articulating the idea.
What will I do about this? And how?