Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?
Do you run away from experiences you don’t want?
We all do. Avoiding a loss has a seven times greater impact on your mind than pursuing a gain.
But what about those times you did pursue the gain?
That might tell you more about yourself than you think.
But it’s never obvious. You have to cut through the noise of everything around you.
Who we’re made to be
That’s what characterizes most of our life: the noise we’re living in.
The stuff people want us to buy…
The things others want us to feel about them…
The pressure to hold it up all on our own…
When this is your life, your experiences are going to define who you present yourself as.
If all we are is the base consumer others lead us to believe, life looks bleak.
And it’s easy to focus on it. Because it’s noisy and ever present.
We have less privacy than ever in a world more connected and the pressure to perform to those expectations.
We have higher demands on us. And satisfying those demands doesn’t mean we get a break…
It means more will be demanded of us.
What a way to get a hold of ourselves.
Who we are
Or we could lay flat and leave it be.
It’s not just the actions we take. It’s the pauses as well.
There’s something about listening to that quiet calling in the midst of all the noise.
It lets who we truly are come through and define the next actions.
Once we stop responding to every whim of the crowd, we’re left with ourselves.
Because no matter how much scorn you direct at the people demanding so much of you, no amount will change who you are when it’s time for you to do something.
We’re more than the sum of our actions. There’s something important underlying it. We could spend our whole lives immersed in noise and never hear what we truly are or are meant to be.
But when we do, we can come back as something more.
Attention goes where it flows
What shapes us is a function of what we pay attention to.
If it’s everyone else, all our experiences (and the trauma that comes with them) will shape us.
And shape us toward the lowest common utilitarian denominator.
But if we sit and listen to the quiet voice, there’s a strong chance we find out who we are.
So that when it’s time to act again, we’re left act accordingly to who we are and not everyone’s expectations of us.
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Read these related posts before you go:
Liberty Begins At Home 
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