---- Every Experience In Your Life Has Made You Who You Are Today -----
While rolling through my Copes Upvote Initiative Curation i have come across a number of great posts which really get my blood pumping when it comes to responding to the content within the articles. What i find is that it awakens the sleeping giant that is my soul and it reminds me of who i am.
What ends up happening is that i write such long and detailed responses that they contain the data and messages that i would put in articles i write themselves. In this case the message was so strong that i felt i needed to share my comment as a post of my own and put it out into the world as i feel it is something which may be able to help people who cling to mistakes of the past, regrets of what could have been, wish that they could change their past.
In this universe you are the best representation of who you are, your life , experience ,DNA, and anything you want to throw in the mix.... it has all come together to make you who you are right now. Its fine to ponder "what if" from time to time, but make no mistake , the reason you are here reading this article is because all the things in your life led you to this very moment.... could there be other paths that led you here ? sure. But chances are the more changes made to your history the greater the statistical chance that it would be leading you away from this path.
i have made a considerable analogy below, and i hope that it helps gain a greater understanding of how i personally perceive the situation and that the expression of this understanding can help anyone struggling to detach from the "yeah bit what if..." mentality.
Original post by @ikalem entitled Butterfly effect - if you could change the past… where my comment below was made.
Comment
I have had this concept in my mind for as long as i can remember. It is easy to wish that you had made a number of different decisions in your life when looking back.... because hind sight is 20/20 right ? lolz.
but when we do this we discount what our experience has led to, that is the culmination of the person you are at this very moment. if the events did not transpire the way that they did then the outcome could be very different.
Take for example this diagram of an angle in the image above, if point B is when a decision is made and point A and C represent the outcomes of said decision, we can see that at point B the difference in paths is not too different to begin with but by the time we reach the outcomes the paths are much further apart. Meaning that even a 1mm discrepancy can lead to Miles/Kilometers difference given enough time and space.
Every part of who we are comes down to our experience in life, any change in the history of who you are could have great ramifications to your very existence in the now and what you think. For me, im happy to understand this concept and know that even my darkest moments have shaped me into the person i am and for that i am grateful to have had all my experiences to date :)
Much love in all your directions
~ Cope
Yes to this.
Add to the complexity of all of that is that there usually isn’t only two divergent paths from a decision, and each of those may have multiple diversions also.
Ancient Chinese philosophy as found in the I Ching in one section mentions that it is through “accumulating the small” – that is, taking small steps and making many seemingly minor choices – that great benefit eventually comes.
😊
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Yeppers
for the basis of simplicity of the analogy i only used 2 factors, but you are right there are usually a number of chioices which can be made which lead to various outcomes. Another consideration is the interventions of others on these choices as well, environmental factors and much more. it is quite multifaceted in nature...
The truth is the hooman condition makes us see things in a digital and binary way, this serves to aid cognitive ease coz thinking is hard, lolz. When we observe a result we see it as being "done" or "not done", but when we experience what needs to be done to gain the results we see the small steps that lead us there. change is constant and sometimes a gradual process... but us impatient hoomans say...
That binary/dualistic thing is just so hooman!!!
I’ve always wondered if it’s linked somehow to evolution, as in what would be the advantages to perceiving the world in that way other than another?
I’m particularly interested in it from my study into Taoist philosophy. It seems perfectly natural to me... but how much of that ‘perfect naturalness’ comes down to something out of my control (like evolution for example).
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we design false dichotomies in the mind, lolz. I would say have a look at "'cognitive ease" , it indicates that the mind finds itself as being "too busy" to deal with such things so it simplifies the data (a little too much) so a quick decision can be made so it don't have to focus on the problem for too long.
This is the kind of basis for stereo types, pigeon holing and much more along these lines. It is useful in a sense, but like most things when abused or poorly used can have adverse effects... eg racism, sexism.... any "ism", lol
Aha. Ok, that’s now making a little sense why Taoist yinyang theory is not simply dualism and appears to have more in common with holographic/chaos theory ideas.... complexity underlying the simplicity!
There is a presupposition that the ‘false dichotomy’ is just a trick of human mind in that school of thought.
Thanks for the tip – any particular sources on cognitive ease that you’d recommend?
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most psychology books will have some data on cognitive ease :)
its true your posts are great i like it.
thank you :)
This is a great perspective to have and a wonderful analogy about the compound impacts of a decision made long ago. It’s helpful for me to think about this, because it lets me realize that things can’t be “fixed” with a single action, like going back to school for a new degree or moving to a new city.
Sometimes I feel like I chose the path of least resistance at several junctions of my life. Recognizing this has caused me to scrutinize the new choices I make today to ensure I’m not repeating the mistakes of the past.
Great food for thought.
Glad you liked the article and it helped you in some way :) The important thing to keep in mind is that what we have experienced has made us who we are today, whatever the trial or tribulation we have endured and gotten through it. But how we perceive it makes all the difference... are you a victim of that past or a survivor of this past ?
The perspective of victim is now which is weak, broken etc. where as the perspective of survivor is based in resilience, overcoming the situation and a point of strength. our perspective is everything in this sense... how we choose to see it has a great effect on us.