#179 Mind - Identity or Instrument?

     The default assumption for many is that the content of the mind ie self-talk and other habits of mind IS one's identity - who they fundamentally are. Yet we get sick and tired of both our own mental chatter as well as our habitual ways of thinking about things and seeing the world. Hence, "a change is as good as a rest"; how we enjoy traveling to another country, where we tend to see things from a different perspective. We keep outgrowing our own worldviews (unless we freeze in our tracks due to fear, laziness, lack of imagination or psychopathology).
     A healthy human adult is able to observe her own self-talk and thought patterns with some degree of objectivity and recognize if it still serves her long-term interests or not. If not, she can let go of the current worldview, and construct a new, more satisfactory one.
     Looking at oneself like this is referred to as introspection. Upgrading one's worldview is at least as critical to an individual as upgrading an operating system is to a computer.

Gimli, Lake Winnipeg, Manitoba