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Weekend Essay 001: Reacting to Reality
‘You have power over your mind- not outside events. Realise this and you will find strength’- Marcus Aurelius
Our reactions make our reality. How we perceive an experience, emotion, even ourselves, all comes down to how we choose to react. When you start to analyse why you are reacting in a certain way, often it boils down to one of four truths.
The First: Biology
At our fundamental core we are animals. Whilst our mind, consciousness and ability to collaborate at scale may give us a sense of humanly divinity, much of how we respond to life is driven by our basic instinct to achieve human needs. We want to survive. Survival means reducing threats and pro-creating. For example, a friend recently read her partner’s text messages, she felt betrayed and jealous or more simply her animal instincts were alerting her that her security and chance of pro-creating were at risk. Our desire to be well liked by our friends, colleagues or even the broader public is driven by our fear of being ostracised from the group and we all know that our chances of survival are greater together than alone. Whilst we live in advanced societies, our intellectual prowess cannot defeat our animalistic essence.
The Second: Emotion
Possibly one of the most beautiful parts of the human experience is our ability to feel. Anger, euphoria, despair, hope. We each ride waves of feelings throughout the day, many of which derive from hormones or frankly a response to change. We wake up feeling optimistic thanks to a morning surge of serotonin, we feel exhilarated flirting, testosterone rushing through our veins. Each interaction we experience throughout the day whether alone, virtually, or in a group, can illicit a range of emotions. We’ve been taught through a culture of professionalism to not respond emotionally as it’s not rational, but it is human and we each need a different amount of time in order to process our emotional response. When you find yourself in a heated moment of emotion, decide to take an investigative approach to your state and pause to just analyse why are you feeling this way? Can you name the emotion? (an ex-boyfriend had to actually give me an emotional chart to help me learn how to recognise and articulate ~feelings. Disclaimer: I am also…
