Source: Dumb Little Man
“An open heart is an open mind.” – Dalai Lama
Do you want peace everywhere around?
Deep in our hearts, we all want world peace. Everyone wishes to live in a harmonic sunlit world where we could always have what we desire without having to compete and fight each other.
Yet, most of us were taught that a peaceful world is nothing but a dream.Coincidentally, the more suspicious we become, the more betrayal we experience.
Poor us.
But is it the only possible way?
Not necessarily.
The Old-Fashioned Origin Of Our Win-Lose Approach
Happily, cooperation has a huge force at its side. And sadly, competition has one, too.
These two contradicting forces are present inside any of us as two parts of our brains. We all have a stem primitive brain and a bigger, new analytical brain. Even the most brainless people have these two powers, though they don’t necessarily use them very often.
Our old brain, the reptilian one, is interested only in survival, food, and reproduction. We all know the type. We do have to thank this brain for keeping our breathing, heart rate, and keeping us alive in general.
When we’re scared, tired, hungry or stressed, this is the brain which automatically takes control, quickly and forcefully. It’s excellent when we have to run away from a tiger, but not that excellent when we have to respond to our irritated spouse.
Regrettably, tigers are not very common nowadays while domestic quarrels are. So more often than not, the old brain’s decisions are not that beneficial for us.
The new brain is the one responsible for conscientiousness and contemplating. As we can see by the length of the words it manages, this is the wiser brain. Indeed, research proves that it makes better decisions, if only we make the effort of letting it work.
Unfortunately, it’s very easy to stress or scare us into automatically moving the control to our survival reptilian brain. Since birth, our benevolent caretakers traditionally teach us, by exclusive stressful competition games, that our success must come at the expense of others. Thus, our loving educators can conveniently use competition to manipulate us to do whatever they want.
Then, programmed to compete, we become excellent pawns in the hands of whoever knows how to push our buttons. Schools, workplaces, advertisers, and politicians use competition and rivalry to maneuver us.
Some politicians, not naming any names, build their entire political capital by spreading hatred and fear. If, by the way, it causes violence and wars, it’s surely not their fault. They did nothing but provoke the stressed reptilian brains of their audience.
Still, these brains are ours. With some awareness, we can choose to examine situations with open minds. We can lull our reptilians and let our new brains make the decisions. It will help us significantly because, as researches reveal, trusting cooperative people are more successful. The distrustful truths we grew upon are, regrettably, nothing but a bunch of lies.
Success, in fact, comes with trust and cooperation. Remarkable, isn’t it?
But there is more to that.
Researches prove likewise that countries with a high level of trust are not only more flourishing. They are also happier.
And you can become that blissful and successful, too.
By using your brains properly.
The Novel Origin Of Our Win-Win Approach
Our new brain evolved after the age of reptiles when the new warm-blooded creatures could no longer lay eggs and leave them conveniently to their fate in cold blood. The new warm creatures had to take care of their cool offspring relentlessly.
As any hot-tempered parent knows, raising descendants is insanely unbearable. Our ancestors had to evolve an enormous power to connect the parents to their cubs nevertheless.
And they did. They created one of the mightiest forces in the universe.
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