Change or Be Changed

The whole universe is change and life itself is but what you deem it . - Marcus Aurelius

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. - Buddha

One of the main themes of pop psychology seems to be contained within these two quotes above. The idea that events do not affect us, but rather our interpretation of those events is indeed very powerful. For example, a person who has held onto years of anger, resentment, hatred, and sadness due to the betrayal of a loved one may eventually come to a realization that it was not the betrayal that led her to the years of pain, but instead her interpretation of those events. It is not uncommon for pop psychology gurus to use something referred to as a reframing tactic to To help someone arrive at a great insight or new understanding of past and previously thought to be understood events.

If you have ever gained one of these insights after having tried to reinterpret past events or memories, you know that this grand realization can indeed change behavior. In fact, it can completely change people's lives. If you yourself have ever achieved one of these great insights, you know that they can indeed cause profound and sudden changes in behavior. Yet, you also probably know that the effects are short-lived.We often find that after 3 months or so we have reverted back to our original behavior despite our initial resolve at the beginning to change. if you remember back to chapter 1 summary, I briefly mentioned the metaphor of the elephant and the rider. that will play an important role in chapters to come.

Speaking of the elephant and the rider, when pop psychology programs are successful in helping people, which they sometimes are, it is not because they convince the person to see things from a new perspective and then just leave it as is, Rather because they stayed after the initial moment of insight but because they found ways to, over the subsequent months, keep people involved in their program long enough to retrain the elephant.