The survival instinct

New Scientist published an article a few weeks back about improving our ability to absorb new things. The article says, when absorbing new information, there are two systems in operation in our brain, one that is scanning the environment to ensure no threat exists to us in person, the second is absorbing the information. The problem is, these two work against each other while occupying the mind space. If one dominates, the other dies.

As we are exposed to information,  the resistance to try new things keeps our mind focused on the known, safe information for which the environmental threat has been factored in. The new information is lost in transit, ignored and unassimilated Our learning slows down and we stagnate.

On a related note, I was having a conversing with a friend on survival instincts and its impact on the space we give to others and for new thoughts.

Why would our ability to give space to others get impacted by the survival instincts? When we  give  space to others, we let them err;  their mistakes may not be acceptable to us and we resist the threat. To minimize such errors,  we deny space and leave very little room to experiment.

Correlate this to your ability to remain calm in unnerving situations;  my belief is it is to do with your ability to keep survival instincts at bay. Survival Instincts are vital, but need to be used judiciously, only in the face of genuine threat, not perceived ones.  

Happiness

In one of the blogs I wrote earlier, I have mentioned, what we make of the world around us is the world for us, fundamentally it isn’t good or bad, its how we internalize it.

I think happiness is also such an inside thing.

When we are brought into this world, our genes are structured for two things, survival and multiplication. While we grow from being an infant to a child, the parents and siblings are the biggest influence. They help us survive, they help us by feeding us at the right time, listen to our cries and help us get over them. Our world revolves around them and we think they are the best species in the world. They are our idols. Most of the formatting of us happens at this time, their experiences of the world are fed to us and told what is right and what is not. Our actions in conformance to their expectations are lauded, otherwise are criticized. We keep doing what gets lauded and refrain from the ones that are loaded in favor of criticism. Our happiness is to keep getting lauded from them.

We cross the early teens and start experiencing the world a bit more, our circle grows from just the family to friends. Now, our friends and teachers start to influence how we feel about ourselves. The appreciation in the class becomes a goal and once we get used to it, we keep doing it more and more. In a way we are conforming to the society and feel happiness for being appreciated. The friends become one more source of emotions - happiness, grief, jealousy and what all. Within those, a few drive our happiness, if they tell us we are doing well, we start feeling happy. Sometimes, it starts confronting the happiness we derive from the family, we chose one over the other and make peace.

We start working, we chose the people at the place we work, we want to get appreciation from and if we get it, we feel happy.

And at some stage the girlfriend/boyfriend make us happy or otherwise.

My thinking is, the people we chose to emulate or get appreciation from, make us work in a certain direction and then seek the appreciation and happiness. One may ask, is it such a stage of helplessness? If that person is not going to appreciate what I do, will I all the time feel unhappy? I think there is truth in it.

So, what can one do? Change the people you want to emulate and get inspired from and your metrics of actions you do to make you happy will change.

Our uniqueness

One thing that constantly baffles me  is the way we perceive  danger and well being. Most of what we perceive of the world a is a reflection of how we internalize other's experiences. We aspire to be a Steve Jobs or a Bill Gates because we perceive them as models of success and conceptualize their path to be 'the' way.

We are all unique. We are a sum of the DNA and the feedback loop that is operational inside us. We  consistently make choices on the basis of the feedback loop that we receive from the outcome of our experiences. The response to a given situation differs from person to another. It may be an outcome of the life experiences but the interpretation of the those experience and inputs of those to the feedback loop to make new choices is so us, is so much an outcome of the DNA inside us. I am using the word DNA loosely as it is very personal. It is then the inability to be others that makes us perceive danger.

Once we realise this we will graduate our responses to situation to suit our comfort zone, again dictated by our experiences or lack of them.

Stress is an outcome of the gap between the aspirations and capabilities. The aspirations are built based on the expectations of the world around us while sadly,  the capabilities are very our own. There has to be re calibration of the aspirations  constantly so that we remain unstressed. A friend of mine says stress is never an outcome of more work, stress is an outcome of body/mind not aligned to the outcomes. If one works more hours, can get tired but never stressed. For us to be away from stress, the body and mind have to be aligned and aspirations are attuned to the capabilities.

Student assessments

“What is the biggest failure of your life?”

So asked the interview panelist, the student, a bit baffled, “falling in love”. The panelist had no clue how to move the conversation forward, in normal circumstances it would have been, what has been your learning from the same.

“Why do you think it is a failure?”

“I lost the girl and my GPA”, now the panelist summoned the courage, so what is your learning from this failure… “not to fall in love again”

The second panelist asks the questions to the next student, “Which author you like the most”

“Dan Brown”

“Name the last book you read”

“Fifty shades of grey”

The third panelist to the next student

“Which newspapers you read?”

“Page 3”

“Is there a newspaper like that?”

“Oh… sorry, I mean I read page 3 in all the newspapers”

Having been silent for a while, and feeling familiar with the situation, the first panelist asks the question, “So what is happening in Priyanka Chopra’s life?”

And, the student actually answers that question.

This was the interviewing that happened in a management institute for the intake of first year students.