The Unnoticeable Enslavement
If I tell you, you are a slave for more than 95% of your time, will you think I am crazy?
I’ve heard about a story of a wise man who had a chance to speak with the Dalai Lama. The wise man asked him, “Are you in total control of yourself?” Dalai Lama responds with another question, “How much of your time is fully self-aware?” The wise man is quite confident in himself, but because he’s speaking to Dalai Lama, he tries to be humble. “Only 30 to 40 percent, I suppose.” Dalai Lama smiled and replied, “I am happy for you. I have around 5% of my time being fully self-aware.”
If to be free is to be self-aware, to say you have 95% of your time in slavery is not an exaggeration.
The Slavery of Your Mind
When we think about losing freedom, we often think about external constraints that hold us from what we want to do. But rarely do we notice that we have so many constraints within ourselves.
If your eyes were covered up physically for as long as you can remember, you wouldn’t be able to understand the concept of color. Likewise, if you have never seen what’s happening in your mind, you wouldn’t be able to understand true freedom.
If we can identify what enslaves us, we might find a chance to break free.
Determinism: Genes, Experiences, Environments
There are three types of determinism, which means you are controlled by previous conditions instead of your free will. You react to certain things in certain ways because you are ‘conditioned’ to do so. So whatever you are thinking and doing is only a reaction to a stimulus. Your future is determined, and you cannot change anything. That sounds quite sad. Isn’t it? Think about this. If you believe this theory, it automatically became true because you’ve given up and are all ears for the stimulus.
Determinism also means there are three types of things you can blame. These three types of things make you who you are and make you do stuff that you say you don’t want to do:
- Your genes
- Your experiences
- Your environment
Have you ever thought your bad temper is in your genes? Have you ever felt the reason you are afraid of raising a child is your parents’ wrongdoings? Have you ever thought it is because the tax was too high and the tax collector was too rude, so you cannot live a happy life?
To say our genes, our experiences, and our environment have no impact on us is also a stretch. They have influence, but they do not determine. What’s clear is that after we identify what might have tied us up, we have the choice to break the loop.
Aren’t you curious about yourself?
Have you ever blamed your genes? Your experiences? Or your environment? I encourage you to spend some time and open your eyes looking inside. You will discover interesting and valuable things about yourself.
Be free from your past and create the future you want.
What more can you do after identifying them? We can leave that to the topic of next time.
