The meaning of life lies in trying to survive, and the greatest survival is to live the original id.
Pay tribute to those who strive to break through themselves.
What is the real dilemma in life?
Think about it, what kind of experience is the dilemma you have experienced? Lost in the dark? Or the kind of suffocation that has hardly changed after hard work?
But I think that the essence of all your difficulties is actually a matter of choice.
For example, if you go to a western restaurant occasionally, you will have a dilemma when choosing prawns with cheese or lamb chops with vanilla.
Or you have just arrived in a company and are confused about "following your leader" or "sticking to your principles".
For another example, some people say that Beishangguang can't accommodate the body, and the third and fourth lines can't accommodate the soul. You don't know how to choose the future.
Of course, more often, you don't even have a choice. For example, you and your partner have had a hard time recently, but you just don't know how to improve each other.
But have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to choose? I'm afraid there is only one problem, and that is feedback.
You will experience hundreds of choices in a day, but more than 99% of them are made by your subconscious mechanism in a default "sure" way.
For example, do you want to drink water when you get up in the morning? Do you want to fly by the window or by the aisle? Do you greet your colleagues in the elevator or smile and nod?
It's just that these questions are often stable and definite feedback in the long-term experience: drinking a glass of water in the morning gives you comfortable feedback, because you can get off the plane early and tend to the aisle, because colleagues respond better and greet the elevator directly.
But the dilemma of life lies in how to face those uncertainties-feedback.
Why is it so difficult to break through?
The process of seeking self-breakthrough is essentially a process of changing "uncertain feedback" into "deterministic feedback".
Almost everyone who loses weight dreams of getting a method of "determining to lose weight in one month 15kg". If you are looking for a job, you must be eager to get a skill that "will definitely pass the interview".
So you will take action and keep trying. But all changes may encounter a dilemma:
1, lack of internal feedback
When you try to write an official WeChat account, you will have a great sense of accomplishment at first. You will secretly admire "I can write such a good article", and your family and friends will also marvel at your ability to write such a good article and give you a lot of feedback. So you are very motivated to write every article.
However, with the passage of time, no matter you or the people around you, this fresh stimulus gradually decreases, forming a logarithmic growth effect (obvious growth at first, then tends to be flat).
Almost all internal feedback is like this, such as fitness and learning a new skill. There will be great changes at first, but it will soon enter a bottleneck period.
2. External feedback is not timely.
If we can't get strong feedback from internal feedback, we will look for external feedback.
For example, your fans' feedback on the official WeChat account, but this is often an exponential growth model (the growth is gentle at first, and it is obvious after reaching a certain node).
For example, if you try to change your child's bad habits, the feedback at first is not obvious, but it will get better later.
But most people's self-breakthrough lies in the exhaustion of internal feedback, and they can't wait for the moment when external feedback (inflection point) comes.
03 solution
In the face of this dilemma, how should you adjust?
One inspiration is that in primitive society, the uncertainty of primitive life is much higher than that of modern people. How did they handle it?
In the survival law of primitive people, there is no such complicated interference as modern people. Knowing their laws, we can easily find the essence of things.
For example, I thought of the scene of how primitive people cooked a pot of fresh soup. I listed three most important aspects for your intuitive understanding:
1, "meat dishes", cooking soup must first have ingredients, and rich ingredients can be obtained through exchange. This is the first layer of self-breakthrough, and the core is how to change from value expression thinking to value supply thinking.
2, "fire", primitive people have the ability to control the fire to cook soup. This is the second level, and the core is from self-control to self-empowerment.
3, "salt granules", sprinkling salt is the last step of cooking soup, there is no salt in the soup, but it is everywhere. This is the third layer, and the core is from self-thinking to non-self thinking.
"Meat dishes", from value expression to value supply.
A primitive tribe hit a wild boar and suddenly got a lot of meat. But what if you want to eat vegetables and fruits at night? Then take out a small piece of meat and exchange it with the woman in charge of gathering. If you want to cook a pot of soup, you need to take out more meat, change some pots and bowls, and change some salt.
To survive, you have to provide your own value in exchange for the value of others. This is the core survival law of human society, value supply.
If the situation is a little more complicated, for example, one day in a tribal market, men provide meat from hunting, but ten women provide vegetables.
When women feel the scarcity of "meat", they will try their best to exaggerate how good the vegetables and fruits they picked today are, and even belittle how bad others are.
Man is a gregarious animal. In order to survive, individuals must show their value to the group. This is the law of marginal survival and the expression of value.
But it is much easier to shout "My things are better" (value expression) than "I want to provide you with enough vegetables and fruits" (value supply).
So the world has gradually become an interesting phenomenon, and many people pay more attention to expressing value than providing value.
For example, you often see many people in the office trying to defend "I am right" and "I am better than you", but they ignore what value they can provide to others.
The same is true for those who can't handle their feelings well. They pay too much attention to expressing themselves and ignore the value of providing comfort and care.
This is the first step in trying to break through, how to provide value and get feedback from the outside.
In the next "self-breakthrough" series, I will use four articles to discuss the topic of "how to improve value" from four angles: thinking, learning, skills and analysis.
05 "fire", from controlling thinking to empowering thinking
Since the invention of drilling wood for fire and gaining control of fire, primitive people can start barbecuing or making soup.
On the surface, using fire is a kind of control, but the core is actually constantly adding wood.
The same is true of self-breakthrough. On the surface, those great gods have achieved breakthroughs through a high degree of self-control. But in fact, they do a good job in "empowering", that is, constantly empowering themselves or the team.
What concept? Share a story for your understanding:
As a former road bike enthusiast, I once met a friend of a former provincial road team who went cycling on weekends. It was very hot that day, and our goal was to go back and forth in an ancient town 70 kilometers away. That was the first time I rode that far.
After climbing the mountain continuously, I was exhausted. Even if I stop several times, I am still very tired. After careful observation, my friend found that it was my riding posture that caused a lot of oxygen to enter my lungs when I took a single breath.
I am much better after adjustment, but after riding 50km, I feel that there is still 20km distance in navigation, and I feel uncomfortable again.
My friend's advice is never to stare at the final goal. It is necessary to study every section of the road, such as how to bend this bend and what kind of breathing frequency this straight road takes.
In short, I really learned to ride that time, and the 70km after coming back from town was very easy.
Most people think that success is to bite the bullet and fight until after 70km. But think about that terrible turning point in life. How long does it take you to get to it?
Remember a concept, if you use willpower to complete a breakthrough, you are probably still at the primary level.
According to experts, growing up is full of fun. They have completely found a way to empower themselves along the way and constantly empower themselves.
This is the second step to try to break through yourself, how to change from controlling thinking to learning to empower yourself, so as to get more internal feedback.
After that, I will discuss the topic of "how to empower yourself" with four articles: self-discipline, efficiency, habits and tools.
06 "salt grain", from self-thinking to selfless thinking
The last step of "primitive people boil a pot of fresh soup": salt into the soup, the shape disappears, but it is everywhere. This is what I call "elephant invisibility". The worst thing is that you often can't see the shape, which is the realm of "forgetting me".
But many times, we are more like a bone in the soup, always maintaining our own shape. Because of self, it will be difficult to let go of your so-called identity. This is the most critical reason that hinders our self-breakthrough.
Why do you say that?
At the beginning, it is said that 99% of your daily decisions are made automatically by your subconscious mind, much like a primitive tribe. People from the tribe do things every day. They are numerous and powerful. They can hunt, gather, build houses and many other things. But they have no brains and are often impulsive. They are actually part of Freud's "ID".
And there is a chief in the tribe who is responsible for dealing with brain problems that the masses can't handle. He occupies a high position and controls the masses. But because of the limited strength, it often gets out of control, which is the "self" part.
Primitive tribes worship gods and totems, which is the meaning of their lives and also has moral constraints. This is the "superego" part.
Freud's point of view is that totem worship (superego) should be brought into play, so that chiefs (egos) can strengthen management and suppress the masses (id). Because primitive people (ID) are simple-minded, selfish and full of desires. It should be well restrained to make the whole tribe develop better.
These are the values we have accepted since childhood, developing the moral superego and letting the rational self restrain the perceptual id.
However, since Freud, the mainstream western psychological schools have put forward different views.
For example, Winnicott said, "Let your instinct pour out like an avalanche!" It means that primitive tribal people should be allowed to freely exert their power, and they are the absolute power to decide the fate of the tribe.
The reason why our "id" is often suppressed by the "ego" is mainly because the chief of the "ego" has language ability, and he can judge anything. Then the people of those tribes followed silly beliefs, which led them to fail to play their due potential.
Therefore, the highest level of self-breakthrough is actually to forget the "self" and play the "ID". No matter what I pursue, the Buddha's ego, Maslow's self-realization and Kahneman's peak experience are all pursuing this realm. This is the third stage of our breakthrough in life.
After that, I will discuss how to let go of self and reach the realm of no self from four aspects: interest, talent, letting go and meaning.
07 conclusion
To sum up, all our difficulties are caused by uncertain choices, and the key to choice lies in feedback.
Feedback consists of internal and external. External feedback should be obtained by providing value, and internal feedback should be obtained by self-empowerment.
The top masters should constantly pursue the realm of no self, give up self and judge others, so as to exert the infinite power of the subconscious and achieve self-breakthrough.
What is the "self-breakthrough" you want to achieve most? You can write it in the comments section, and I'll see if I can write it in the later article.
Think of a passage in "Three-body":
Living in the universe itself is a very lucky thing, but I don't know when humans have such an illusion that survival is at their fingertips, which is also the fundamental reason for their failure.
The meaning of life lies in trying to survive, and the greatest survival is to live the original id.
Pay tribute to those who strive to break through themselves.