On believing....

I had dinner at Gabriel's last night. Of course, he had a lot of stories from his life and interesting insights into mine. We hadn't seen each other in a while. We spent most of the evening discussing relationships, and one of his early thoughts was this Henry Ford quote: “Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.”

I figured this out a long long time ago, but I think I lost track of that "knowledge" along the way. I observed when I was 20, and remembered now, that all that it really takes to share your life with another person is the firm belief that you can.

Brian likes to tease me for being such a girl. I talk a little about politics and a little about happiness and mostly about relationships and how hard they are. But I don't believe that's really all I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Middle East. I'm talking about human nature. I'm talking about economics. I just talk about all of it in terms of two people who love each other finding a way to share their lives. It's like a _metaphor_, you know?

But back to Ford... I was perusing the internet today and someone was talking about how in "On Intelligence" Jeff Hawkins posits that for the brain to learn it requires pattern recognition. It won't record new patterns until they have been used several times indicating that those patterns work. Likewise, if you already have the patterns for success at whatever you're trying to do (whether it's get along with someone, build an automobile, or climb a mountain), it's more likely to happen.

Similarly, children in school tend to perform as well as they are expected to. So, if you expect your neighbors to try to kill you, or your partner to be insanely jealous or leave you, or to fail professionally... is that internal expectation really translatable to the outside world? After all, not everyone can hear your thoughts and act accordingly.

In life, we repeat the same mistakes until we're tired of them and refuse to continue. They say the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Every time you "learn" something, inside or outside of your brain, you're being predisposed to "learn" it again but potentially permanently.

To combat this, "The Rules" advises eligible bachelorettes to act on the assumption that men adore them. This way, eventually, the right one will get the message and fall in love. It also keeps the way clear when men who don't and can't adore them attempt to waste the young woman's time and affections. Here, again, ones expectations should eventually be met with reality.

There are a couple different ways to manifest these events. You can tell yourself about your success over and over (a l'Affirmations) or you can act like a successful person (a la Rules and probably lots of business books too). (I remind myself of that song: "whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head up high and whistle a happy tune....") Both systems probably work, and maybe they even work best in combination with each other, but it doesn't really matter bc ultimately you need to "learn" to believe it by creating and affirming the desirable patterns in your brain.

Sometimes my posts pour out in perfect order. Other times they’re a big scrabbled mess. I fear this accidental post may be the latter. Sorry about that.