We get issued at birth with the greatest supercomputer ever designed.
The problem is that we don’t get issued with any instructions on how to work the supercomputer. We all have to flounder around using trial and error to figure it out, which can lead to disastrous consequences.
In the worst case, a malfunctioning supercomputer can cause us incalculable damage.
Thinking the wrong thing can do more damage to our wellbeing, our health, and our happiness than someone or something deliberately setting out to harm us.
Life is the training manual for learning how to operation these computers we all carry around in our heads. Unfortunately, this process takes decades.
It might take us into our fifties or beyond before we master the basics so we can actually start living productive, effective lives.
Some people never figure it out. They spend their lives miserable and destroying themselves and everyone around them.
This is a really, really stupid way to run the world, but I don’t make the rules.
So today I’m issuing everyone with an instruction manual for your brain. These techniques will make sure our onboard computers are functioning the way they ought to. These instructions will allow us to correct any errors or malfunctions that may pop up.
Think of your life as a car you’re driving down a road. It’s up to you to get behind the wheel and steer the car where you want it to go.
If we got into a car and smashed our foot down on the accelerator pedal without bothering to steer, we would probably wind up sinking into the bay, not to mention threatening life and limb of ourselves and everyone around us.
To operate our lives, we have to steer.
Think of the human body as a high-performance racehorse that needs proper nutrition and exercise to function at its peak.
We can also see our bodies as cars. Our bodies need the right fuel, the right maintenance, the right tire pressure. They break down and become unusable if we neglect them. The same thing happens to our bodies.
If we had a computer that didn’t work right, we might say a few bad words to it. Then we would take it to a programmer and get it fixed so it did what we wanted it to do.
If a car coughed, spluttered, and lurched down the highway belching black smoke from under the hood, we would take the car to the repair shop.
We wouldn’t get the car back until the mechanic fixed it—and I mean really fixed what was wrong with it and returned it to its proper state of functioning.
If the mechanic tilted their head to one side, listened to us describe what went wrong with the car, and said, “How did that make you feel?” we would want to sue them for fraud. We would take the car from mechanic to mechanic until we found someone who could actually fix the damn thing.
We all have things going on in our brains that work against our best interest. Our negative self-talk, outdated beliefs, and self-sabotaging doubts interferes with us living our best lives.
We watch other people whizzing past us on the highway of life while we limp along the shoulder in half-dead jalopies strapped together with duct tape.
Our cars billow smoke across the windshield so we can’t see the road ahead while others cruise past us pumping music from their high-performance sound systems. We watch these people waving and smiling from their windows and it makes us feel even worse.
Today is the day we get our cars and our onboard computers fixed so they actually work.
The first step it to recognize that all this trash in our heads is slowing us down and even stopping us from living our lives.
A lot of this garbage needs to be eliminated. Other parts need to be repaired and corrected. Fortunately for us, it can be.
Our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, doubts, and ideas as really just habits. That’s what our thoughts are. They’re habits like every other habit in our lives.
Repetition over time locks our brains into these entrenched ruts. We keep thinking the same things over and over again year after year, even when we know these things aren’t true.
These thought patterns become so habitualized that we don’t even recognize the patterns that keep those habits in place.
Let’s take out our magnifying glasses and analyze a random thought I know a lot of you suffer with. Here is the thought we’re going to analyze.
“I’m worthless and everyone would be better off without me.”
This thought is extremely counterproductive to a healthy, thriving life. It is poisonous and it is completely untrue. It’s a bald-faced lie and yet so many of us carry this around with us.
We spend year after year believing this and repeating it to ourselves. Why? Do you even realize how tragic that is?
I could spout off a whole laundry list of other thoughts, ideas, notions, and doubts we tell ourselves.
“I’m ugly.” “I’m unlovable.” I’ll stop there. You get the idea.
The thoughts we want to eliminate and reprogram are all either blatantly untrue, they’re supported by flimsy or nonexistent evidence, or they’re leading us to a conclusion that is against our long-term wellbeing. These are the criteria we’re going to use to identify thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that need to be changed.
These thoughts and others like them are all habits. They’re mental habits.
Maybe our parents or someone else told us this in a way that the thoughts took root in our minds. Maybe these toxic people pointed out evidence they said supported these beliefs.
How the habit became ingrained does matter, but it doesn’t matter nearly as much as breaking these habits.
We break these habits exactly the same way we would break any other unhealthy habit like smoking and drinking too much.
How do we break habits? We dissect them down into pieces. We dismantle the habit into its support components.
We need to understand each segment in a continuous train of thought that brought us to the conclusion that we are worthless and that everyone will be better off without us.
That conclusion is the endpoint of a sequence of other thoughts that carries us to the conclusion.
Think about the support habits and entrenched lifestyle routines that keep someone smoking cigarettes year after year.
Maybe the person grew up in a house where their parents smoked. Maybe the person surrounds themselves with friends who smoke.
Maybe the person buys cigarettes as a matter of routine each time they stop for groceries or gas.
The person has to set aside a certain amount of money in their weekly budget so they can afford to buy cigarettes. They go through a series of steps that make smoking frictionless and inevitable.
Now apply the same logic to our thoughts. We started out with a certain thought pattern that may have been implanted some outside source.
Now we go through a set routine that keeps the thought pattern going. We consistently focus on the evidence we choose to believe proves that the conclusion is true.
We dwell on every tiny mistake or stumble. We magnify every awkward moment and turn that into more evidence to convince ourselves that we are worthless, that we will never amount to anything, and that WE are the problem that needs to be solved to protect the world from everything that is wrong with us.
We do this while ignoring the evidence of our achievements, talents, relationships, and strengths. This is the evidence that we ARE valuable, that people love us in spite of our faults, that our lives are something good and holy.
Each of us has the tools and screwdrivers and soldering irons necessary to fix these computers in our heads. First of all, we need to roll up our sleeves and take the thing apart. We need to expose the wiring that is interfering with our operating systems.
Next, we trace exactly where our thinking is malfunctioning. We identify the lies and manipulation other people used to screw us up. We attack those thoughts and replace them with the correct programming that serves our best interest.
Our thoughts and feelings are systems we put in place to make our brains function in a certain way. Thoughts and feelings are blocks of code made up of many lines, each one an idea or thought on its own. These lines combine to form a single mental process that carries us to a conclusion, an outcome, or a life function.
All we have to do is go through the same process of habitually repeating the opposite thought or belief to replace the old one.
We got like this by thinking the negative thought again and again for years. Now we have to do the same thing in reverse.
We need to hold up and focus on the evidence that we are valuable, that we are loved, and that we have something priceless to contribute to the world and the rest of society.
This evidence is all around us—in every facet of our lives. We just have to look for it. If it isn’t there readily available where you can see it, you can create it.
All you have to do is accomplish your goals, be kind and loving to those around you, and start living your life on purpose in a way that proves to yourself that you deserve to be here.
This process isn’t easy, but it’s a whole lot better than living in misery with all these horrible thoughts in our heads. These thoughts can either wreck our lives or build us into something happy, beautiful, and thriving.
Each of us can and should take it upon ourselves to make sure our brains are running the right programs.
Mental illness, negative self-talk, or other malfunctions are all the end-stage symptoms of an operating system infected with viruses or programming errors.
We can reprogram these out so our brains function properly and bring us the fulfilment and happiness we all crave.
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All content on the Crimes Against Fiction Blog is © Theo Mann. You are free to distribute and repost this work on condition that you credit the original author.