#551 Primary Goal Selects our Operating System

     If your primary (overriding) objective is to escape from a burning building, most likely you'll be in full fight-or-flight mode.
     If your primary (overriding) objective is to excell
          • in competitive sports
          • in academics
          • in your profession
          • financially
you will most likely be in the fight-or-flight mode to varying degrees much of the time. These are challenging, competitive (adversarial) pursuits. In order to achieve a coveted material goal, as quickly as possible, people devote pretty well all the time, energy, & other resources they have. There's urgent egocentric striving, whether the fire is "in the belly" to become CEO by age 25, or is in your house & you're desperate to escape. Many live such "a life unexamined", which at some point they realize, was not worth it.
          However, if your primary (overriding) objective is to live as an evolved human being, most of your attention will be on the people and environment right now, relating to them appropriately. There is no struggle against competitors to achieve this. It's a lifelong project & company is very welcome. If you also want to achieve one of the material objectives above eg academics, you will approach it as an evolved human being - in a friendly, collegial, collaborative manner - rather than as an obsessed, self-centered, aggressive cave-man. Your operating system does not need to devolve to succeed in the world. See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2014/05/establishing-new-way-of-being.html

     We still have cave-women & cave-men among us. Such folks believe that being an evolved human being is incompatible with "success" in the "real" world. They believe that cheating, lying, bribery, stealing, bullying etc are necessary, and only the simple-minded reject these. "Greed is good" & "Win at any cost."

     Which is my path: the low road of "wise guys" or the high road of the wisdom traditions?  
     What is my primary goal & overriding operating system?

Human-powered boat day, Venice, June 2014

#42 Practicality of heart-mind approach

     "meditation can augment economics courses, where professors often use experiential exercises to teach students about the role of competition in distributing limited resources. According to classical economics, individuals will try to maximize their own profits at the expense of their competitors. But ... if professors first have their students practice a loving-kindness meditation before beginning the exercise, students shift their conduct to consider the needs of others."
     Suttie J. The new science of mind. Shambhala Sun, March 2012. http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=114

     Self-centered, competitive, adversarial behaviour, though still openly encouraged and applauded in some sectors, in many ways resembles that of a cancer cell. Of course the cancer cell is unaware of, and unconcerned about the big picture. Homo sapiens sapiens should have significantly greater perspective, but for most of us, it's a challenge to maintain. Bernie Madoff is but one recent example of the impact of one individual's lack of wisdom - blindness to the big picture - on the rest of us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff

     The way in which a single healthy cell relates to a healthy multicellular organism resonates with how Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Teresa, etc related to the world.

     How does my right hand treat my left hand?

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