No matter how big the life problem is, everyone says, “Don’t worry… everything is going to be okay.” We have all heard this sentence once or many times in our life. But have you ever wondered why we say it? Why do we say everything is going to be okay when we are not sure of that? Is there any benefit to doing this? Is it actually good for you to console yourself?
Today, let’s talk about it. It is said that in our body there live two people. It is seen in many places and known as Yin and Yang or by many other names. These two parts of ourselves are our individual entity and the second one is our human brain. Though an individual entity is something that can’t be controlled, rather it is something that makes you, YOU. It might not be the case for our human brain.
The human brain is the most intellectual creation of the creator. It contains every problem along with the solutions. Humans are the best creatures of creation because of our intellect. Over the years, humans have become the most dominant creatures in creation because of human brains…
But the question is, are you controlling the brain, or is the brain controlling you? I already wrote a blog about how society is controlling us using fear and anxiety. There is a saying that our brains are our most reliable servant… Here the word servant is used intentionally because according to research, we can fool our brains to do certain things that don’t usually seem possible. Whatever we tell our brains, it does exactly that. But we can’t just take the words for it. We need proof of that.
Harvard University professor Nicholas Christakis once said that you become your conversation. What he meant by that was whatever we say is what we become. We might not even see it when it happens, but what you are saying about yourself to others or to yourself is what you will become over time. Your conversation with yourself is what makes and shapes you to YOU.
When we emphasize the bad things, for example, if you say that no one loves you, you have no one and nobody cares about you, your brain responds to it the same way and believes that. It will say YES… You really are alone. No one cares about you. No one loves you. Our brain will say yes to everything we say to it blindly without any reasoning.
This goes beyond that actually because not only does our brain blindly believe everything we say to it, it also emphasizes it… So, if you say something about yourself in a negative way which you didn’t mean at the time, our brain will think about it more than it will to any good thing you say. It will keep on emphasizing it until you are consumed by it. This is the very reason why there are so many suicidal cases and why it keeps on increasing…
There are proven records of this brain vs psychology game… In the 19th century, Dr. Paul did an experiment that might be a little shocking to people… What he did was basically put some rats into the water and timed how long they would survive… Suddenly getting into the water, the rats started swimming, but in 15 minutes they all died… which was much more predictable… But then he put another set of rats into the water and by 15 minutes, when the rats were just about to drown and die, he pulled them out of the water and rescued them. He gave a little break to them and then he put them into the water again… Now the most unexpected thing happened. The rats which were just about to die started swimming again but didn’t drown for 60 hours… That is a huge jump from 15 minutes to 60 hours… It seems almost impossible for rats to be swimming for that long.
But that is how our brains work… Because in the first set, when the rats were drowning, they didn’t have any hope of getting out… so they just gave up. But in the second set, when the rats were saved once and put into the water again, now they had hope… They thought that they would be saved if they waited and didn’t give up for long enough. This made them keep on swimming far longer than they previously could.
“It’s all about the state of your mind.”
That is why Jordan Peterson said that we are just “puppets of our thoughts.” It’s a perfect example of what we think is truly what we become. If you think you can do it, you can do it. If you think you can’t, you never will… This is the very reason why in most games, when a strong team plays against a weak one, the weak one loses even if they had a better chance of winning because they lose the confidence that they can win.
So, it’s all about the state of your mind… If you can control yourself, you can control everything. If you can win against your brain and make your brain your ally, you can win.
So finally, why do we say everything is going to be okay? That’s because we just remind our brains that it’s not over yet. It’s going to be alright. It’s so that you can control your brain and become the pilot… It’s your choice if you want to be a passenger of this boat or the pilot. You can let your brain control you or you can control it yourself and become the pilot. You have to choose what you want to be.
