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Learn how to overcome the weight of consistency
Friday, 27 October 2006
The natural world can be a scary place. Fire, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes affect people in a way that often seems random and dramatic. Our ancestors had to deal with sicknesses they didn't understand, predators they didn't hear coming, and accidents they couldn't recover from.
The way we've built our modern world to remove and ignore the chaos of nature tells us a lot about ourselves. Sure it's useful to have the trains run on time, work start at a set hour and machines who's behavior we can predict with minute detail.
But on top of their usefulness, these inventions also offer to feed a deep psychological hunger. You can witness this by how angry people become when even tiny cracks in the ordered world appear - the train's a few minutes late, the computer freezes for a moment, and so on. Small events like these can send seemingly rational people into fits of rage. Clearly there's more going on here than mere utility.
Inside us all is a deep need for consistency. And also, a suspicion of anything that isn't consistent. This need is so powerful, that it can overwhelm even supposedly more desirable characteristics such as truth, honesty and good behavior.
For example, in the 2004 American presidential election campaign, the Republican Party painted a careful picture of the Democratic candidate's inconsistency. John Kerry was labelled a "flip-flopper" in a devastating insult which may well have lost him the election.
Whether Kerry's ideals were right or wrong became irrelevant. All that mattered was whether they were consistent. This isn't a partisan point rather than an interesting case study.
The path of a river, from its source in the mountains down to when it reaches the sea, is determined by one factor - which way is the easiest to flow. Water is pulled down by gravity, and it follows the least laborious route. Usually, the river itself begins to determine and carve the easiest path by eroding away earth and stone. Once this occurs, to redirect it can become an enormous task.
Our minds can often behave the same way. We live in such a highly complex world, and are bombarded with so much information, that it's simply too much work for us to deal with it all. Instead, we must rely on short-cuts and automatic responses.
The river inside our mind looks for the easiest route to follow. And once it's found, we too erode the land around it to bolster its strength.
Keeping the river on route can become more important than ensuring it's flowing in the correct direction. What's best for us becomes of less importance than keeping everything consistent.
Bad habits like smoking, alcoholism, workaholism, anger, violence and irresponsibility all have various causes. But at least one reason people continue with them, even when the damage they're doing is obvious, is the need for consistency. Once you've decided "I'm an alcoholic", "I'm someone who doesn't exercise", or "I'm not very smart", shifting that river of the mind to a different route can be an enormous undertaking.
But not an impossible one.
Overcoming the weight of our need to be consistent is difficult, but here are some clear steps towards doing it:
- Consider that the alternatives may be legitimate for you.
- Research those alternatives and even give them a try.
- Be able to identify when an alternative would be of more benefit to you than sticking with your current path.
- Get started with rerouting your "river of the mind".
- Be strong enough to overcome the urge to shift back into the old groove during the early days of your change.
Using these steps can help you overcome bad consistencies. And even better, being able to do them is a skill that can be used again and again in all sorts of arenas.
Just as you wouldn't take up running by attempting a marathon straight away, you should start small in training to beat the need for consistency. Give up a simple bad habit or take up an easy good one. Then, continue practicing until even overcoming quite difficult challenges becomes manageable.
In most cases, maintaining consistency is important in our lives. Chaos and uncertainty aren't nice things to have around. But sometimes, that need for consistency can work against us. Make an effort to ensure this doesn't happen for you.
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