Environment matters — it’s not just your thinking

Note to reader: This is a bit off my normal topic of escaping the 9–5 job in favour of a life worth living (just saying).

And yes, I am having a bit of a rant. it does speak to the psychological side of the journey to lifework freedom, which is certainly what stopped me getting going with this many years earlier.

It’s quite fashionable to diminish the effect of environment and see our responses as being completely our own doing, just thought. In one sense that is absolutely spot on; 100% of our experience of the world comes via our thought/feeling and processing of it.

With that understanding it makes complete sense, if not common sense to say that nothing in the outside world can cause us to feel in a specific way. Thus at different times the same external world ‘stimulus’ can be experienced by us in different ways. One day the neighbour’s music pisses you off, and the next day it doesn’t.

Now that is true, if a bit of a revelation to some. This is the basis of the Three Principles understanding and can be very powerful especially for people who think up a storm in response to events in the world. Realising that you are doing that tends to result in doing less of it, and no surprise, when you are not revving up your thinking, you tend to feel better, make better decisions and respond …better.

Now, the above truth can be taken too far, in my book. If you do not think the environment has any effect, go stand in a patch of quicksand and you will find that it does — but only once.

Maybe you can accept your sinking fortunes with equanimity, and Theravada Buddhist monks spend their entire efforts to that end, which I consider a very worthy one. Most of us would not be so cool calm and collected and might say such things as, ‘oh dear’.

I have been on my allotment today in warm sunshine with a hoe and a smile. It felt really good, a feeling that would change in an instant if I had to go into an office and work. I am not a Buddhist saint and do not have such a high level of realisation. I am also part of a greater environment, as are we all.

Is it not incredible arrogance to refute the world’s effect on us and champion our thoughts as inviolate?

We, you, I move through our environments and are part of our environments. The different environments call to different parts of our conditioned minds, different parts of our habitual thinking, are latticed together, are psycho-environmental-engrams.

Yes, I do usually feel better in a forest than a graffiti spewed street. And yes, those feelings both come from my thinking and my thinking is jigsawed into my environment. How could it not be as the only way I move through my environment is through my experiencing of it. And, yes when I realise that both sides of a preference are my thinking I can mostly choose not to make it a problem either way.

But it is still a preference, and the environment is still having an effect.

I think there is a danger of me coming to a point which is, acceptance is great in the context of understanding our experience is coming from our thinking, and not great when it comes to being willing to stay in a toxic environment … because it’s just my thinking.

No, it is not just my thinking, it actually is a stinking pile of poo. That is perfectly fine, and stinking piles of poo have their place in the universe but I have no wish to stay in one.

Many workplaces are the psychological embodiment of a stinking pile of poo. They are a collection of dysfunctional people who now have the power to force their brand of crazy onto other people who are afraid of having no money to live on.

Well, here is my book and in my book this is not ok and I would suggest using the considerable cognitive skills we all have to go beyond benign acceptance, and create environments that are actually worth living in.