Without realizing it, the experiences that leave us feeling
tired, hurt, disappointed, or frustrated end up influencing our view on the outcome
of future experiences. If your days at work leave you feeling unfulfilled, you are
more likely to expect an unfulfilling day once you begin a new one. If
someone in your life consistently drains you of energy during your
interactions, you are more likely to expect an interaction with that person to be anything otherwise. If you recently made a commitment to
start exercising, and found the first few workouts to be absolute misery, you
are going to find excuses for why you won’t be able to do it again. Pain
avoidance is a natural and important heuristic that humans have developed in
their evolution to survive in a challenging environment.
The problem with pain avoidance is that it assumes that our
environments won’t change. In the 1960s, a psychologist in the US named Martin
Seligman ran an experiment where dogs were administered with a series of
painful shocks. At first, the animals would test and try different methods to
avoid the shocks. But after receiving enough of them, they simply endured
the pain. Even after they were presented with ways of escaping the pain and the
circumstances of their environment changed, the dogs took no action. This behavior
was later referred to as learned helplessness.
If we are to live lives of presence, fulfillment, and
compassion, the notion that our environment can’t change without our intervention
could be considered learned helplessness. Beyond the dynamic changes you may
have experienced in your relationships and growth in the past several years,
consider the pace of technology and how it may have affected your life. Magical
pocket computers that give us access to all of the world’s information have
only been in use by most Americans since 2013. Uber, the world’s largest taxi
company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner,
creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And
Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.
What forgone conclusions of struggle or disappointment have you made in your life?
By closing ourselves to the possibility that we can
change someone’s life or transform our own in a given moment, the parameters of
our past become barriers to our development in the future. Each day is
an opportunity for us to acknowledge that while we have limited influence over the
people, resources, and circumstances of our lives, we cannot control them
entirely. And since we’re still here, in a mind-numbingly complex arrangement of
space and time, perhaps we can consider each and every moment an opportunity to become
our best selves.