Being in the situation that I was in with my life, I understood that in order to survive I had to change a big part of the person that I was. It is a tall order and I spent many years attempting it and failing miserably. There are many aspects involved in successful change, but here I want to discuss one personal stumbling block that took a long time to overcome. Once I was able to see this flaw in my understanding of how to change, I was able to experience some true progress. I’ve never heard of this idea mentioned in readings, or hit upon by other people in any direct way that I have been able to identify it with. I call it digital vs. analog change. Let’s see if I can explain it.
My first attempts at change I now call digital. Basically it involves doing an inventory of ones character, attitudes and behaviors, then making an assessment as to what parts are good and what are bad. Note that this assessment was not only based on my own view, but relied heavily on others to be more objective. [I’ll talk about the trouble with self-assessment in another blog] Since my goal is to change into a better person (one not crippled by the bad stuff and using good stuff to live a better life), I turned my personal inventory into a ledger. The bad stuff I would diminish or eliminate and the good I would increase or introduce. With this accounting I had a path to change.
Many doctors who work with behavior modification or other such help groups feel that this alone is the winning formula all by itself. By turning the bad to 0 and the good to 1, a map is laid out that can put you on the right path. At first the new structure for living seems un-natural to you (cause it is!), but over time your behavior is modified by repeating the new structure over and over again. You get reprogrammed and the new structure now seems natural and automatic to you. Digital way of change (simply adding and subtracting individual “bits”) does seemed to be effective for many. I will be the last one to shoot it down, but for me I needed more.
Although this technique seemed to make sense in my first years attempting real change, they always led to failure ultimately. The early results always seemed promising and was convinced, even after repeated failure, that I just had to refine what I was doing. What I realize now is that many times one can be fooled into thinking that real fundamental change is occurring when instead it is only superficial at best. Now I admit that my problem in this area might only be relevant to me, there are many people who can attest to the fact that I may be the most suborn human who ever lived, but I believe that in some regard the insight that I am about to give will be useful to others.
For me I needed a way not to add and subtract bits, but to find a way to smoothly transform each element in an indivisible way. I call this analog change. Only through a perceptually seamless transition could I truly have real insight (a fundamental paradigm shift) into accepting and living as the new me. I could not become a different person in leaps and bounds (even small ones), it was the complete and uninterrupted journey that led me to true transformation. A bad habit could not be cut out of me and a good behavior substituted in. The bad habit had to fade and become unpalatable as the good behavior simultaneously had to fade in and become attractive over the bad habit. It is this seamless transition that gave me real fundamental change that was not programmed in, but realized.
I don’t know if people follow what I’m trying to say (experience is relative), but I hope that maybe I gave some people new things to ponder. I don’t want to make this post any longer by more explanation, but feel free to comment and ask questions.
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