Many people in this world seem to be firmly determined to suffer as if they have started enjoying the suffering. It seems quite strange but that is a reality. They would not grow as human beings and would continue to be stuck and fixated on their limited perspective of life. If they fall weak at any point in time, they would just seek validation from their fellow members of the same society, who would just validate their worldview and they would continue to be determined not to grow.
Sometimes I wonder as to what are the reasons for such an adamency. I feel that there are primarily two reasons viz Loss Aversion Bias and Confirmation Bias. Psychologists have carried out a lot of research to understand loss aversion bias. Generally, the pain of losing 100 rupees would be far greater than the pleasure of getting 100 rupees. This is called loss aversion bias. Say, for example, somebody gets Rs 1,000 as a surprise gift in the morning and while coming back home in the evening, he loses the money on the way. Each of us would agree that he would be sad at the end of the day. What if he got Rs 1000, and lost Rs 500 out of that. There is still a great chance that he would be unhappy.
We are born in families, and over some time, we make friends and develop relationships. We get a lot of security from these people. Generally, the opinions and beliefs of our colleagues, friends, and family members are decided by the average consciousness level of society. Since we get a lot of psychological security from social validation, we develop an aversion to losing this approval. The idea of growth as a human being, which society may not approve of, makes us uncomfortable. We want to hold on to whatever we have.
The second and equally important reason is the confirmation bias. We all selectively ignore what we do not believe in. Our biases and beliefs keep influencing our choices to a large extent. For example, every time we want to watch a YouTube video, we decide as to what video to watch. However, YouTube keeps track of our history and keeps suggesting what video to watch next. That is why reels keep coming on YouTube based on our interests. Probably, our unconscious mind is also like that. We make certain choices using our conscious mind and the unconscious mind maintains a history thereof and keeps suggesting the conscious mind every time it wants to make a new choice. When we have watched YouTube videos for quite some time and YouTube understands our preferences and choices, it may become quite difficult to say whether YouTube is making the choices or we are making the choices.
Similarly, as we grow old, the unconscious mind has a history of our choices exercised over a long period. That is why it becomes more and more convenient for us to listen to the recommendations of the unconscious mind. After years of using YouTube, it knows us better than ourselves and we feel at ease to use its suggestions. In fact, we do not want to type the words in the search box and keep watching whatever You Tube suggests. That is what happens with the unconscious mind. It takes over control of our lives and we keep taking decisions that are suggested by the unconscious mind. In fact, the neurology of the day has proved that we become conscious of our decisions after a few milliseconds of the decision.
For this reason, most people lose freedom and keep living life based on the guidance of their unconscious minds. That's why they live in the past memories and fail to live in the present moment. The unconscious is the creation of past memories and experiences. The conscious mind loses connection to the inner self and that is why it does not have a mind of its own. Since the conscious mind fails to give direction, the unconscious mind takes over and we continue with the illusion of control because the unconscious mind just lives YouTube keeps making decisions repeatedly that we liked in the past.
Probably, the only way out for not getting stuck and to grow as a human being is to be aware. The moment we regain awareness, we realize where we are stuck. The conscious mind gets connected to the consciousness and starts exploring the world to understand reality. We understand why YouTube recommends certain videos and having understood the same, we gain control over the content display. We focus on certain areas of exploration and ask YouTube to display videos related to that topic. Awareness helps us observe the world without biases of the preprogrammed unconscious mind. Awareness also helps us get over the loss aversion bias. As we explore nature and understand truth, we understand the limitations of what we possess, and therefore the feeling of loss fades away. We are more interested in what we don't know rather than retaining what we know or have. That's why it appears to me that the key to grow as a human being is awareness.
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