Why?
Because fear seems to me to rule our lives.
In every way.
I would argue that almost every decision I have made in my life has been driven/chosen via fear. Certainly, this may not be the case for everyone. But, in my view, I suspect it is true for most of us.
It has been said that every choice that we make is either driven by pleasure or pain – moving towards what we want or moving away from what we fear.
In my case, it has been more about avoiding what I fear more than seeking what pleases me.
The reason I am taking this tack today is because, in my view, this matter is often glossed over and the hard discussion around things that we do not want to discuss is all too often avoided. So, I am going to have this discussion in the interest of being open and, also, if anyone else ever gets to read this, to see if anyone else feels/thinks the way that I do.
In recent times, as I have pondered the reasons and/or decisions that have led me to where I am at in my life today, I have increasingly beat myself up for making bad decisions. I understand that there is no real upside to beating myself up endlessly but I wonder whether it is possible for me to make different decisions or whether it is too late for me to make decisions that can actually change the way that my life plays out. As I have only a few years left, I suspect that it is too late for many changes to actually affect the outcome as I have lost the advantage of time. In fact, I ask myself almost every day, if it is too late to make any significant changes in my life or if this period of my life coming up is already cast, based upon earlier decisions in my life. That, inevitably, leads to the “Is there any point in trying?” question.
So, what has this got to do with fear? Good question. Perhaps I have strayed a little from my original premise – most of my/our decisions are motivated by pain avoidance rather than pleasure seeking.
What I propose to do right now is look at some of my “bad” decisions – those that did not serve me, long-term – to see what motivated me and then, to ascertain what was the primary motivator – pain or pleasure.
So, decision one, the decision to smoke. What led me to decide to smoke and why, after hundreds of attempts, I continued to do so. Now, that is a powerful one because any thinking human being would understand that, long-term, there is no upside to smoking yet, I continued for many, many years. I suspect that the initial decision to smoke was motivated by wanting to look cool and grown up – this may come as a surprise to younger readers but, when I was growing up, it was considered cool to smoke. In fact, in those days, tobacco companies advertising was largely directed at younger people trying to make them feel cool and grown up. Anyway, they convinced me!
Once I started smoking, I found it almost impossible to stop and I continued for 40 years, despite having promised myself hundreds, if not thousands, of times, to stop. I rarely lasted more than a few days. On a few occasions I lasted a year or more but always came back to it. One has to wonder why? Why would I revert to a habit that was obviously extremely bad for my health after I had been free of it for a long period of time? Obviously, something in smoking convinced my mind that there was a positive aspect to it – somehow, it served me – either by giving me pleasure or reducing my pain!
So, apart from smoking, over the years I made many decisions that did not serve me yet, at the time that I made those decisions, they obviously served me in some way or I would have made a different decision!
Then there is the argument put forward by various commentators such as do-gooders, self-help/motivational gurus, psychologists etc. that we actually have “choices”! Of course, path A or path B could be seen as choices because different people choose different paths but, do we really have a “choice” at the time that we made that decision? I would argue against. If the choices that we make are predicated upon our genes, our past, the society in which we live, the sum total of the experiences that we have, then it would appear to me that the only “choice” we had was the one we made.
Having said that, the “path” to making “better” choices [i.e choices that are good for us] may be built upon choosing to have different experiences by reading different books, learning different habits, having different experiences, learning to think differently, hanging around with different people and so on. If that is the case, then perhaps, over time, we can learn to make different choices.
That means that there is no need to “beat myself up” for the choices that I made in the past – I was simply doing the “only” thing that I could based upon my prior experiences and anyone with same genes, same society, same experiences would have made the same choice as me at the time.
It would appear that I have strayed a little from the original supposition about fear but that is not the case – I would argue that almost all decisions are based more upon the avoidance of pain [fear] rather than moving towards pleasure but, sometimes, this can be difficult to distinguish.
Awakenings 