As always, I’m interested about the reason behind every human behavior and there is one answer that covers everything: the inner universe. The most interesting part about our inner universe is that we barely get to know it, and when we do know parts of it, we often go in the opposite direction.
I believe there are two strong forces that govern our inner universe: fear and desire, and they are shaped by our core beliefs. We basically act bases on which one is stronger. If our fear is stronger than our desire, we’ll behave the way fear dictates. If our desire is stronger than our fear, we’ll behave based on that. These two forces are strongly connected to the immediate consequences we predict. For example, if a person wants to write a book, that person will firstly look at the immediate consequences. If he/she “sees” judgment and rejection, the fear will get stronger than the desire and the chances for that person to never write anything increase. However, if the person “sees” that people’s lives can get better thanks to it, then the desire gets stronger that the fear and he/she will probably start writing. I believe that this applies for every aspect of our lives: finances, family, work, love and so on.
You know what’s the saddest part? That we fail to see the long term consequences. There are people who live their whole lives doing things against their inner universe. They deeply want something, but fear gets in their way and they behave “as expected” (by family, society, boss, friends, colleagues, spouse and so on). They never think about the fact they enjoy nothing about their lives and they will feel horrible until their time is gone. And the “funny” thing is that if you ever ask any of those people advices, they’ll say to live your life the way you want, that life is too short for compromises and that you should put yourself first before anything.
This is the reason why I believe we shouldn’t judge others based on their behavior when we don’t know their reasons. Maybe they want something so very much, but the fear is stronger than their desire and we judge them as being horrible people just because they behaved in a certain way.
We love to jump to conclusions because that’s how we feel better about ourselves, but what if we’re wrong? What if our conclusions are wrong? What if someone behaves in a certain way because he/she is afraid to go for what that person really wants? Yes, behavior is important because that’s what impacts real life, but I believe that reasons are even more important because they are strongly connected to one’s inner universe.
If you want to analyze your behavior, how often does your fears beat your desires?
PS: If my writings mean something to you and if you feel you can learn anything from me, check out my book (Fighting the Inside Dragons) on Amazon in both Kindle and Paperback format!