Great people don’t talk about hard work, they only talk about going against instinct

Once when I was eating in a restaurant, a mother next door brought a little boy about six or seven years old. The little boy kept clamoring to play with the iPad. My mother said I could only play for 10 minutes because it hurt my eyes. 10 minutes passed. When the child was playing video games intensely, the mother came to collect the iPad. The child was able to close the iPad obediently and hand it to the mother.

I was just thinking, what kind of self-control is this! If you ask me to go back to this age, I definitely can't do it.

However, the reversal occurred quickly. Only a few minutes later, the little boy repeated his old trick: "Mom, I have rested for a long time. I can play with the iPad again now."

There is something in the world that you really want to have, but what you don’t like the most is others using it to remind you. That is----self-control.

We have been criticized by our parents for lack of self-control since we were young. When we are older, we are criticized by teachers for lack of self-control. When we are working, we are criticized by bosses for lack of self-control. When we are old, our children will say: "What are you doing?" Such a lack of self-control"?

Those success studies sold at the airport tell us: hard work can lead to success, concentration can lead to success, more introspection can lead to success...

It is a pity that most of us have these excellent qualities. No one has it, but behaviors that lack self-control such as enjoyment, avoidance, procrastination, and anger are all born with it. They have a very powerful backing: instinct.

So instinct is bad? Why “anti-instinct”?

I found two contradictions about instinct in reality:

We can return to the origin of life through several questions:

The purpose of instinct is for what? Survive.

What is survival for? Breed! (You can think that humans are not like this, but when you see many lower creatures sacrificing their lives for reproduction, you know that the goal of reproduction is above survival)

What is the purpose of reproduction? Gene duplication!

Why do genes replicate? Maybe God wants to copy it. All I know is that genes that cannot replicate will not survive today. The continuation of life is such a simple truth.

Genes, through genetic information codes, design the structure and capabilities of our lives. But unfortunately, its ultimate purpose is to copy. In other words, genes will design a series of abilities that allow you to survive to the age of reproduction, but they will not be responsible for your "long life" or your happiness.

The pursuit of happiness is the purpose of our life. Genes do not care whether we are happy or not. We are just survival machines for genes, so genes are "selfish"! [1]

In this way, we can easily deduce: survival and reproduction are the most important factors for replication, so we need to have the ability to match the living environment. This is "natural selection, survival of the fittest" "The law of evolution. Those that consume less energy, are good at avoiding danger, have the ability to occupy resources, and like to be social are the four important means of maintaining survival and reproduction, thus forming various instincts.

Looking back at some of our instinctive habits, they are all related to these four factors:

Reduce energy consumption:

Be good at avoiding danger:

Likes to possess resources:

Participate in social collaboration:

We found that the above instincts are not only not useless, but also unique skills that are crucial to our survival and reproduction.

However, our purpose is to live a good life, and reproduction is only secondary. Even if a person does not have lofty pursuits, he is at least pursuing happiness. This is not consistent with the essential purpose of genes, and even It conflicts with some instinctive behaviors, such as identity and selfishness, love and sexual impulse, honor and escape, etc. Therefore, to completely solve our life problems, we need some "counter-instinct".

The human brain is divided into the reptilian brain (brainstem), the mammalian brain (limbic system) and the rational brain (neocortex) [2].

The reptilian brain has no thinking ability and is only responsible for survival and reproduction. It has evolved for 300 million years. The mammal brain processes emotions and memory and has also evolved for 200 million years. The rational brain is responsible for thinking, and only humans are more developed. The human brain is like building a new house on top of an old one. The rational brain, which has only evolved for hundreds of thousands of years, is built on the basis of the reptilian brain and the mammal brain, but the entrances, exits, and passages are still old.

It is completely different from the food shortage and precarious environment a million years ago. Now our basic survival and reproduction are no longer a problem. What we need is reading ability, innovation ability, strategic (long-term thinking) ability, and persuasion ability. , leadership, writing skills and even artistic abilities. However, our reptilian and mammalian brains have not had enough time to evolve to adapt to the needs of this environment. On the contrary, they are resisting these brain-burning things.

Those instincts for our survival and reproduction continue to make us stay in survival behaviors such as laziness, gluttony, looking for security, and forgetfulness for profit, forming a situation where the evolution of instincts cannot keep up with changes in the environment. contradiction.

In today’s world, most commercial projects are taking advantage of people’s instinctive flaws to make money, especially social software, Internet celebrity effects, online games... When analyzed to their essence, it can be said to be evil. .

Seeing this, should we still indulge our instincts?

To be anti-instinct, it is not enough to understand instinct, you also need to understand the working mode of the brain. After reviewing a lot of information, I found that the brain’s operating model has the following characteristics:

1. We have two daily thinking modes [3], [4]

System 1 ( Fast thinking): information → emotional processing → decision-making → behavior;

System 2 (slow thinking): information → emotional processing → memory/experience extraction decision-making → cognitive thinking → decision-making → behavior;

Because System 2 mode consumes a lot of energy and responds slowly. Most of our daily decisions are made using System 1, which is fast, and instinctive behavior is the default module of System 1.

2. Reason and emotion are not antagonistic [5]

We always think that reason and emotion are opposite, but the latest scientific proof has shown that each part of the human brain is a pluralistic system , there will be many modules forming different opinions on one thing, and quarreling in the brain (outputting emotions). In the end, which voice (emotion) is louder, which decision will be executed. So, all decisions are emotion versus emotion. Reason is a follower, and its duty is to find reasons for emotions.

3. Instinct behavior and learned behavior are related to each other [6]

Research has shown that instinctive behavior and learned behavior are the result of the interaction between heredity and environment, that is, any innate behavior All abilities need to be induced by the acquired environment to be perfected, and any learned behavior requires a certain innate genetic basis. It's just that more advanced skills are less affected by genetics and have greater plasticity.

By understanding the above three points, we will understand that "instinct" is not indestructible, and we can turn on "anti-instinct" in our lives.

In life, we have actually long understood that sometimes "instinct" will interfere with our plans, but just by working hard, persisting, fighting hard, and emphasizing strengthening "self-control" to deal with it, I can definitely Say the effect is bad.

Why? Because instinct is quick thinking, subconscious mind, and underlying values. If you don’t have a systematic and scientific method, you will just face off against your instinctive habits on the surface without competing with them on the same dimension, and you will eventually lose in just a few rounds.

When we build "anti-instinct", we want to build new fast thinking, subconscious and underlying values. In other words, it is not so much "anti-instinct" as it is "following" instinct, "cheating" instinct, "using" instinct, and ultimately achieving the goal of defeating instinct. Of course, this construction process is not that simple. It is a process of deliberate practice and continuous practice.

We can consider the following strategies:

1. Create more shortcuts

We cannot ask our brain to call System 2 (slow thinking) forever ), comply with the brain’s energy-saving requirements, and incorporate as many learned behaviors into the subconscious mind as possible. Look at those great people, when they encounter complex problems, they can make the right decision immediately without thinking. This is because there are many shortcuts in their subconscious mind, not just the default shortcut of instinctive behavior.

With more shortcuts, there is room for choice and it is possible to replace "instinct" behavior.

2. Emotional control practice [5]

Since decision-making is about emotions versus emotions, instead of strengthening rationality, it is better to control emotions. We can practice it through Brewer's RAIN four-step method Emotional control ability:

There is a key mechanism here, which is to prevent emotions from being satisfied at critical times, that is, they float in the mind many times and are accepted, but they are always "separated" in the end. Not satisfied. Of course, we can also train this practice itself as a "thinking shortcut", that is, when encountering key things, the first thing to do is not to make a decision, but to RAIN first.

3. Improve cognitive depth

Charlie Munger said:

Since we have inherited such a developed rational brain, why not make good use of it? Once we pass the in-depth cognition of the rational brain and continue to practice it, we can internalize the cognition and cultivate complex cognition into the subconscious mind. They say that only by forgetting the tricks can you become a master. This is the truth.

What it means to have high emotional intelligence is to cultivate the depth of the nursing brain (emotional brain) to resemble a rational brain. In this way, it is possible for us to elevate "learned behavior" to the level of instinctive behavior.

This article triggers thinking about self-control VS instinct from a case, and illustrates the difficulty and necessity of "anti-instinct" through the two contradictions of instinct. The first is the contradiction between the nature of gene replication and the happiness of life; the second is the contradiction between the evolution of instinct and the inability to keep up with environmental changes;

Then by analyzing the operating mode of the brain, it discusses why it is difficult to change simply through hard work and persistence.

Finally, three cultivation strategies for building counter-instinct were formed: 1-Establish shortcuts. There are many shortcuts, and System 1 can choose more than just instinctive behaviors; 2-cultivation of emotions. If you can let go of emotions when they should be released, and hold back when they should be, then you can act as a fair decision-maker in the quarrel of multiple political systems of emotions. The cultivation method is RAIN; 3-deep cognition. Only by having a deep understanding of things can it be internalized into the subconscious mind and become a master.

Finally, I wish you all success in your cultivation!

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References:

[1] Richard Dawkins "The Selfish Gene"

[2] The "three-brain hypothesis" proposed by Paul MacLean in the 1990s, although it is no longer completely accurate, is easy to accept because the metaphor is very vivid.

[3] Daniel Kahneman "Thinking, Fast and Slow"

[4] Wei Lan "Counter Instinct"

[5] "Why "Buddhism is true" Wanwei Steel Elite Daily Course

[6] Wang Wei. "On the relationship between instinctive behavior and learned behavior" [J]. Journal of Ningxia University (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 2005(2)