Wait…
Before you react, take a moment to realize that I am not trying to insult you. My brain is lazy, too. Everybody’s brain is lazy. In fact, if you did react, you just proved my point… to yourself… or proved your point… uh… nevermind….
My point is, your, my, and every other humans’ brain do this. It’s a design mechanism that, in our modern time, is more of a flaw than an asset.
What am I blathering on about?
Heuristics. I know that explains everything, right? No? Ok…
Your unconscious mind employs short-cuts (heuristics) in order to keep you safe. This is a necessary feature of the thing that’s sole existence is to keep you from harm. Why would this be necessary? Well, if you think about it, you need to be able to respond to a little bit of information especially if that small amount of information represents a threat.
Story time…
Once, when I was in high school, a friend of mine and me went camping up in the mountains we lived near. There were two campsites in the area, about 2 miles between each other, high on the peak. We stayed in the lower campsite and my friend (we’ll call him Dennis, because that was his name) said he heard there was a party going on in the upper campsite. Well, of course we decided to go up to the campsite and, also, decided to walk instead of take the car we came in. It was also very dark by the time we made the decision, mostly because we were bored. At least, that is how I’m remembering it.
So, we set off, hiking the lighter line of the dirt road leading up to the second site, sandwiched between two dark cavernous walls of woods lining the road. We were casually chatting about what girls we thought would be at the party, or something equally inane, when something HUGE moved in the woods off to our left. I say, ‘HUGE’ because that was my experience. I remember this distinctly to this day. What I don’t remember is how I got several hundred feet up the road before I stopped and turned around and saw Dennis standing rigid; stock still as a statue.
This illustrates two of the strategies of the survival brain, what is most commonly called the Fight or Flight system. When my brain detected the sound, my brain immediately took over and, without thought, I ran. Flight. My friend, when he detected the sound, his brain took over and, without thought, he stopped. Froze. I ran to get away from the threat, and my friend didn’t. By the by, freezing is a survival strategy because predator’s eyes are focused first on movement, so, by freezing, Dennis employed the Jurassic Part strategy of becoming invisible.
This illustrates the effect of the brain’s heuristic workings. It took the smallest amount of input to create the survival system to activate. We did not stop, check out the woods, consider the options, and then decide our prospective responses because that might have been a problem. The first thing to know is we use a ‘Have It And Not Need It’ response, meaning, without enough information present, we add the information we need, which is usually negative. Meaning, whatever moved in the woods, whether badger or bear, our brains inserted the scariest information it needed. It didn’t matter if it was actually a threat or not. So we acted… or reacted. The second thing to know is that when our survival brain activates, it takes away the ability to use our higher brain functions.
In a very roundabout way, this is how the brain uses shortcuts. Now, this seems like an extreme measure, but, the problem is we do this all the time regardless of what is going on. It is as simple as looking around the room and seeing furniture, or cars, or trees, or whatever, and not spending a lot of time paying much attention to the details.
Call this a security sweep. We look at our environmental labels, our brains looking for threats, and move on. Do it. Right now… without trying to prove me wrong by lingering on the details.
How is this a problem in our modern lives? We aren’t walking up dark mountain paths all the time, but our brains think we are. We often react to things our brain’s think are threats and before we know it, we are creating more stress in our lives. We are also creating major social problems, like racism, and gender stereotyping, because of this way of thinking.
Why?
Because of the ‘Have It And Not Need It’ negativizing that our brain uses when we have a lack of information. Or think we don’t need more information, because of the labels we have socially attached to others. Because labeling is a quick and easy way of storing information. And the problem with that, is labels are vampiric in nature. They take away the power of whatever you have labeled.
So, what is this about?
Well, like I mentioned at the start of this theme, if you just take a moment and force your brain to ‘think’ about what is going on when something happens, you can insert new information into those labels that can change the way the brain references them. Now, I wouldn’t recommend trying to do this on a dark mountain road in the middle of the night, but I would whenever something happens that we can really deem as non-threatening, like getting angry at people for doing things that we wouldn’t, or having belief’s that we don’t.
How’s that for not being lazy?
If you want to hear more about this topic, listen to my new radio show, called What Drives You! and available on your favorite podcast service. And, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at mike@mikegorday.com.
And, if you want to know more about how the brain works, here are two great books that talk about these systems: