The Brain Is Changing

When we try something new, our brain says, “Hey, what are you doing? Why not just keep living the way you always have? Why try something new?” and hands us the gift of sleep, ruthlessly ignoring our rare “decision” to shake up the existing system.

Thanks to the “brain,” we try to maintain the systems already set up in our own way in this organism called “me,” so we think, choose and act the way we always have. But also because of the “brain,” the choices we make with great resolve to change our lives often come to nothing.

Just because you didn’t head where you meant to doesn’t mean you need to blame yourself, thinking, “They say effort is a talent too; I guess I was born without the effort gene,” or “What’s wrong with me?”

Because we have to spend our whole lives with you, the one who seems mine yet not mine, whose name is “the brain,”

let’s now use the “brain” once more to design a positive future.

Say you’ve been a job seeker working hard on applications, and you’ve finally passed the first-round document screening, the second-round aptitude test and the third-round interview, and been “accepted,” and now you’re going to work as a member of the company.

First of all, congratulations! You’ve worked so hard. But our lives don’t end with “Now life will be full of happy days.” Our lives don’t end with “Snow White woke from her sleep with the prince’s kiss and lived happily ever after with him.”

It starts now.

Once the worry about finding a job is over, before we know it, another thought sprouts.

It begins with “Can I really do this well?” and all kinds of thoughts follow one after another until they take hold of us.

In a word, the “brain” is saying, “I don’t want to change anymore!” It seeks comfort, avoiding the discomfort of abandoning the system it’s used to and adapting to a new one. And who’s doing this? The very capable brain that made us act so efficiently.

But here’s the thing. As you keep working at the company, you get used to the senior colleague and the manager who subtly mess with you, and another system develops in which you can let it go with “There he goes again.”

Before you know it, you’ve gone from newbie to top-level employee.

In other words, the brain has left its past environment behind and adapted to a new system.

Even after hearing “books are food for the mind,” if you start reading because someone said “reading broadens you and helps you earn money,” one thing happens right away.

You get sleepy. Here, instead of thinking, “Ah, I can’t do this; books and I just don’t get along!”, you should think, “Ah! My brain finds it uncomfortable to change to a new system right now! It’s not because I’m lazy or not smart!” and go back to reading. Just try again what you meant to do.

What I want to say is that our brains are changing. They keep changing. So don’t blame yourself; think about your brain’s system, and keep going until the new system stabilizes.

In the next post, I’ll cover the science of whether the brain can change.

• Related post: Wake up your neuroplasticity

• #brain
• #system
• #change
• #stability