‘Money attracts more money.’
A saying that is pretty much believed by most people. But is it true?
While one may argue against it or for, the truth still is that a Warren Buffet or Bill Gates were not born rich. That argument should end there. But it does not.
How often have we seen the people who do well, do even better, the rich seem to get richer much quicker, the happiest of folk seem to be blessed as nothing ever seems to go wrong in their perfect lives and the beautiful or popular lot seem to continue to reign almost indefinitely. And no matter what you try you just cannot seem to catch up. You think and know you are working just as hard if not more, and yet nothing seems to improve.
That poor bloke who has lost a job has a life that seems to go from bad to worse, and tragedies seems to hit him at every turn, the poor stay poor.
Is it luck? Is it just destiny that seems to drive our lives? Is there a way out? Or are we destined to live out the fate we started with? How do you leave one fold of life and jump on to the bandwagon of the folk with better lives and pretty wives?
In 1957, at the John Hopkins, noted biologist and psycho-biologist, Curt Richter conducted an interesting spinoff to the Porsolt test. He took a few wild Norway rats and immersed them into a tall jar of water with the height of the jars walls such that the rats could not escape. Their only choice was to swim or drown. He noticed that a few of these rats drowned in a few minutes and some swam for close to 60 hours.
On these rats that drowned quickly, he conducted autopsies, checked the condition of their hearts and concluded that they had died submissive deaths. Not seeing an escape, they simply gave up.
Curt then proceeded to try the same experiment, but with a twist. This time he dropped the rats into the water jars and but just for a few minutes. He would then then pluck them out and ‘save’ them. After a while he would dip the rats into water again, then after a few more minutes he would rescue them again. After repeating this a few times, he put the rats in the jars and did not try to rescue the rats. He noted that all the rats then paddled for between two and three days in hope of escape before drowning and dying of exhaustion.
Running the risk of turning a psychoanalyst this little experiment does make one thing clear. Consciously or not, our minds are conditioned based on past events. We have a mind map that follows the most obvious pattern. And while we pride ourselves with our lives being the sea of choice that it is, we are often unknowingly prisoners to ourselves. Our sub conscious choices lead our lives.
We all subconsciously decide how to go about a certain task based on previous mental baggage, be the result good or bad.
Knowing this fact is key to jumping ship to the ‘happy lives and pretty wives’ bandwagon. It is a very important step to taking what little control you have over your life.
The second experiment rats believed there was possibility for survival. They endured. After surviving multiple times they believed they had a chance. And so they paddled on till it was physically possible. Active thoughts of giving up were easily surpassed by the subconscious desire and drive to live.
The rich get richer.
People who have certain experiences get conditioned to it. Their self confidence (good or bad) grows based on how results have taken place in the past. And they push toward similar experiences.
Like the rich getting richer as they have had similar earlier experiences, the contrary is just as true too. We start to believe in our patterns, and the truth is our brain starts mapping patters even when sometimes there is nothing to be mapped. In a positive situation ofcourse it works wonders but more often than not we need to take a second look into it. Take a look at the figure. What do you think could be the next shape?
With just something repeating twice, it was enough for you to conclude what the third shape might be.
The idea is to make a conscious choice by cheating the unconscious.
The understanding is simple, a winner continues to win because he believes there is a strong possibility that he will. There was a pattern which made his mind believe it. The rich get used to making more money, trusting themselves and their choices a little more, their confidence and commitment growing and after a while even if they make mistakes they believe they can bounce back because they have before. The pattern is set. To summarize the phenomenon in a word (or two): ‘Donald Trump’.
It is about building confidence in a certain aspect of yourself and your life about the possibilities and not reading into shallow patterns that might really not be patterns at all. If you seem to be doing bad in an aspect of life, it is perhaps time to make your mind unlearn and cheat a little on it.
Of course confidence can often turn to overconfidence, but over a course of time, if there is the winning bent of mind in the subconscious, there is the ‘yes, there is a definite possibility’ bent of mind and the pursuit to beat the fallacy in false patterns. There is indeed a shot at redemption for each of us.
Our life is sea of choices and knowing that fact, it is up to us to make them, to meet us half way toward our goals in it.
With a little help from ourselves, the tide can change in our favors. All we have to do is to aid it and form that positive habit of thought.
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