There's a song by the late Harry Chapin, called Flowers are red. It's about a little boy on his first day at school. He's happily crayoning beautifully coloured pictures of flowers. His teacher notices and doesn't like what she sees. She sings: Flowers are red young man and green leaves are green, there's no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen.
The little boy replies: There are so many colours in the rainbow, so many colours in the morning sun, there are so many colours in a flower and I see each one. But the teacher insisted until the little boy conformed, and his creativity died.
One day a new teacher came to his school. She asked the little boy why he only painted flowers of green and red. He replied: Flowers are red and green leaves are green, there's no need to see flowers any other way than the way they always have been seen.
That little boy was programmed for life. Unfortunately, humans are not like computers where you can switch programs at the click of a mouse. Computers have an endless supply of software. We are limited to what's installed on our hard drive, and sometimes that has essential parts missing. The advantage that a computer has over humans is its lack of emotions. Unlike you and me it has no fear of the unknown. We fear it, afraid of change, and afraid to take chances.
This isn't really about computers. It's about beliefs, habits of mind, particularly the ones we hold so strongly about ourselves. The kind that paralyze us, that make us resistant to change.
From where do these roadblocks of the mind come? According to the 19th century philosopher William James, beliefs are fixed in us when we are quite young, usually by those in authority. Parents, teachers, the state; sometimes intentionally, sometimes inadvertently. Some are harmless — Santa Claus, others are evil — racism.
Childhood is when we are most susceptible to the programming of beliefs. A child’s mind is like a freshly tilled field awaiting a gentle rain of information to nourish it and help it grow, but sometimes the information falls too heavily or is of the wrong kind. Like rain on a freshly tilled field, puddles form, then streams which can erode the surface, creating chasms.
These chasms in the mind are where our most deeply held beliefs are stored, particularly the ones about ourselves. Consequently, these beliefs are the hardest to change. Beliefs like I can never play an instrument, I can never learn to speak another language. I could never go skydiving. They aren’t so bad, it's the ones such as: I'm shy, I have no confidence, I have poor self-esteem, I have no personality, people don't like me, I'm ugly. Those are terrible things to believe about yourself. But you can change them. It isn't easy but it can be done. You must change the program. Little by little, one step at a time, change the easy ones first. Take a course, learn that instrument, and overcome the little lies you tell yourself and you will develop the confidence to tackle the big ones.
There are examples of people that have changed their beliefs. Historically, women were programmed to believe they were second class citizens but look at the changes made in the last twenty years. They changed their program and men have had to change theirs. Of course, there are a few around still running the Cro-Magnon program: pro sport is the meaning of life, what are women complaining about anyway, I will always leave the seat up. It may require surgery to change that one.
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