NOT ALWAYS ARE WE WHO WE WANT TO BE

It is not the reality itself that makes us who we are, but how we perceive it and internalize what is considered truths, given the influences governed by our systemic relationships with the world. These influences act incessantly on us through family, social groups, school, economy, politics, media, religion, work, among many others.

Our endless and unique relationships provide the opportunity for the development and improvement of our own lives, feeding and expanding our perceptions and appropriating our own sense of BEING. Based on this understanding, mathematician and count Alfred Korzybski published in 1933 in the journal Science and Sanity the statement that the map is not the territory. In his work, Korzybski describes that the human mind can only perceive a small part of the whole, giving meaning to the world according to its own lived experiences—constituted in part only by the environment in which it is inserted.

It is correct to say that each of us has our own interpretation of life, a unique way of interacting with the reality in which we find ourselves, based on our own experiences. Precisely how one perceives and experiences life forms the basis of one’s identity. The composition of our maps then constitutes the beliefs that represent us throughout life.

The concept of observing the map is to provide a view of the world through our relationships that converge in the experiences lived in each cycle of stages. Within a dynamic, changeable process, subject to improvement according to what makes sense.

It is not difficult to perceive our maps. Take, for example, a person who wants to understand the meaning of an abstract work of art. They cannot refer to a “color dictionary” to discover what a combination of a certain blue with a specific shade of green means. There are no “chords and harmonies” manuals to inform what a symphony intends to express, nor a “recipe” to decipher the implications of a theatrical piece. There are no fixed meanings for the symbolic forms of art, capable of separating what makes sense from what doesn’t for each individual. Interpretation is a peculiar part of each one.

The meaning of a work of art and what it expresses only exists in the particular form that each person observes according to the peculiar and private emotion and feeling it provides. The sound, image, interpretation, and sensation of the works are inseparable from what they mean, and how they are interpreted depends exclusively on each person. A painting, a theatrical piece, a symphony, or a novel are complex and original forms, created from a sense of form and individual knowledge instead of systematic meaning. Therefore, what the artist seeks to represent in their work may often not be how people appreciate it.

Thus, the important thing here is to understand that as life goes on, we shape truths within us that guide us to complementary paths with the environment in which we participate. This context is precisely shaped by the distancing or approximation of our own particular reality, which basically boils down to our own way of observing, understanding, and comprehending life.

Each of us is unique in how we are, think, and act, being edited with patterns resulting from combinations that begin with genetic traits and extend through relationships throughout life. The result of these external forces is what determines, almost always, a large part of our behaviors.

Our behaviors are intrinsically connected to what we think, which is based on what we believe. Our truths are the support of the formation that represents the peculiarities in which we are recognized in our relationships with the world. A constant cyclical process, justified as a simplifier of life. After all, when we believe in something, we are actually summarizing the parameters of life and start to provide certainty without further questioning, becoming patterns that compose every piece of ourselves and our thoughts.

It is true that each part of us is formed by a set of events related to our past, often expressed by experiences that effectively marked our history, creating traces in our memory, whether sad, painful memories that hurt us or others filled with pleasurable and happy sensations. This sine wave constructed by emotions and feelings is what references the incessant construction of who we are. We carry these marks as a piece of certainties about ourselves that interfere in our choices, whether to approach or repel from our actions in the present, influencing everything we can expect from our future, keeping us convinced of certainties that don’t always endure.

With this, it becomes difficult to perceive and bring to oneself the certainty that no past event in our life represents the reason for present living. In other words, each of our lives would be much more valuable and intense if the events experienced throughout life could not determine our actions in the present reality. This is the great reason to reflect on our beliefs. Our truths are very minimal compared to the possibilities that the world gives us the opportunity to live.

The fact is that humans perceive life through temporality described between the present, a constant unconscious state, and past and future, which are conscious mental states. Only consciousness is responsible for our time travels. From our baggage, we know that these three times are quite distinct from each other. In the past are memories based on the knowledge of life that was partly really lived, part of our consciousness, our perception, stored in the form of incomplete fragments in our memories; in the past, nothing is more materialized. The past is responsible for our melancholy, the nostalgia of recognizing our own exclusive history. It is not possible for two or more people to have the same memories of an event or occurrence, nor is it possible for two or more people to have the same experiences, same lived experiences, the same view of the world and life. They are unique, exclusive, and formed only, solely, on the conception of the individual.

The future, in turn, corresponds to what will happen, does not materialize, its set is designed by all the events that will become the past at every moment. The future worries us, yearns for our life, generates sensations like fear, hope, and the desire for opportunity. The future is also exclusive, unique, a reflection of all the possibilities of our relationships with life. The future does not become present, does not become past, it only exists in our conscious imagination, in our agonizing thoughts of never being able to materialize it before the time, the now. We aspire to what may or may not happen. Perhaps living in the present is the closest path we can take to the future that awaits us.

In the future, there is also chance. Certainly, chance represents an important part of life, not all, and certainly not nothing, but in it lies an important part of the course of each one’s life. It is correct to say that accepting that chance predominates over life is actually a waste of living, and that often they are represented by one more of those justifying beliefs that lead us to the comfort of not savoring our own life. The fact is that chance cannot represent life itself. After all, it cannot be assumed that life is so trivialized, perpetuating commands of our unquestionable certainties, representing scripts to determine our paths, outlining all our actions based on beliefs created in the face of the conceptions provoked by life.

Belief is everything that brings us the conviction of being as we are, exercising its own power to act effectively or to influence events. An introspective evaluation formed based on a experiential history structured from internal sensations that were somehow relevant. It is the truth on which we rely and that shows the power to guarantee our reasons for being what we are, relating our principles and ideas, in the face of the evaluations of certainties, blinding the truths. They create our “sense of reality,” defining our maps in the perspective of relationships with life.

Almost always, our belief systems are often acquired in a biased way, far from feasible truths of present reality. We then cling to incorrect interpretations and conceptions of ourselves, others, and the nature of life itself. Capable of acting as self-regulators of our well-being, affecting our biochemistry, perceptions, digestion, glands, the immune system, and so on. Skilled enough to make us sick or healthy.

Once established, a belief functions as part of our perceptions and, therefore, filters out everything that does not agree with it. In this way, beliefs are capable of blinding us. Over time, we become our beliefs. They turn into the structure of how we think, feel, work, and relate. They shape our intentions.

Beliefs, in fact, not only represent our actions but our perceptions are also preceded by our intentions, which are directly related to behavior. In other words, it is possible to say that an intention precedes action, coordinating our behaviors. These intentions are almost always unconsciously related to what we believe to be. These relationships feed the uninterrupted emotions, which in turn arm thoughts that generate feelings. The transformation of facts into convictions that, in turn, become beliefs lies in the intensity and recurrence of this cycle. And it is from there that we universalize the world in our relationships, creating mental filters. Beliefs that limit us in seeing the world the way it is, establishing internal maps that make us see only what we consciously or unconsciously propose to see.

This is because beliefs become responsible for the way we interpret received and fragmented information, giving meaning to what we understand life to be. In summary, we can say that our beliefs filter the real perception of the world in four ways: Omission, which is when the mind selects and filters the experience, blocking some parts, especially when faced with something that is not so understandable. The brain simplifies thought formation, cognitively justifying emotion and feeling according to past experiences; Distortion, when the mind distorts the experience, seeing different meanings in it according to the moment and what has already been experienced in some way; Construction, which is when, from information, it starts to create something that is not there, giving it a new reality, working on simulated internal elements often favorable to masks and limiting beliefs, according to each one’s own need; and Generalization, which is when, from an experience, it begins to represent a whole group of experiences – Generalization is the mental process used to streamline and facilitate everyday life, supporting one’s own beliefs.

“What part of you will decide when to use force, and with what intensity, in a fight?”

The truth is that when we integrate a belief into ourselves, it begins to encompass our entire system, guiding relationships with the world. Without realizing it, we start to act in an automatic system that begins to react blindly, leading to a trap that incapacitates us from living fully, restricting our world to a truth that may be far from what is best for ourselves, far from the inner sense of who we really are. This simplification sums up life.

It is very simple to react to others and situations, to let a superficial – and widely inflexible – part of belief, and not the heart, lead life and automatically do the work with the world in which one is inserted. However, sooner or later, inevitably, we will feel that something is missing or not right.

Our unconscious, responsible for almost 99% of our actions, is the great leader of our actions, our responses to relationships with the world, our map as well as our territory. It is existentially present in the now. The present is what we call “now,” the time when our experiences happen, the moment they occur. Bringing the power of temporality to consciousness may represent the great chance to become greater than we already are. To realize the negative effect of belief and all the consequences it provokes.

When we exercise presence in the present, we are able to bring to consciousness the dysfunctions of our truths, generating motivation for changes. In the present, there is the conscious ability to observe when and how each certainty was formed, its origin, and its reasons. When we practice recognizing who we are, exempting the guilty, we become skilled at interpreting without judging, that beyond a response, there are temporal possibilities, and that each event in life is unique and will never be repeated.

Time guides our actions and shapes our perceptions. However, unconsciously, we validate ideas born from beliefs, creating a pre-established pattern of behavior. Such a pre-established pattern that may or may not align with one’s own nature.

The truth is that today is different from yesterday, and it will be different from tomorrow. Understanding this dynamic strengthens the awareness that we are not the same even a few seconds ago. The perspective of life can change as quickly as our thoughts change, and it is this freedom of choice that makes us competent enough to go beyond, since only in the now does life materialize, transform, and reveal itself. It is only possible to live in the now.

Now, a fraction of time formed by moments that will never repeat, unique and exclusive for everyone. Time is the form of introspective sense, linked to our inner state. In light of this reflection, it becomes certain to say that in life, there is only one time. In other words, there are actually three times in one: the present of the past, the present of the present, and the present of the future.

This is because the past and the future are not measurable: the present “is” an eternal now and, therefore, has no extension; the past and the future are also immeasurable in their being, as the past no longer is, and the future is not yet. The past is impelled by the future, and all the future is stored in the past. Now, if we always talk about the things of the past (experiences) and the things of the future (presumptions) from the present, then there exists a past time and a future time that inscribe themselves in present time. The view we will always have of these will always be perceived from the present state and never differently. In this moment, from this perspective, it can be said that we are governed by the time of the world, by the time of perceptions and relations, characterized by the extensibility of time, time that endures only in the concise desire of the present.

Understanding that we are governed by temporal possibilities enables us to find the best way to live life. After all, almost all of us, at this very moment, may have many good intentions to find the best way to live. When this happens, we become filled with optimism, make plans, set goals, and something within us glows with desire, bringing forth the constant longing to find it. But it’s not always enough! The problem is that it can’t be forgotten that, whatever the desired goal, it always requires more than good thoughts, more than planning and will.

More important than finding answers is the know-how of each one in seeking the right questions. When we are in the presence of the present, we are also competent enough to perceive what aligns with our nature, competent to understand that the patterns we created within us were useful for a while but are now in the past. Let them serve now only as an example for new perspectives of life to form and thus allow for the expansion of the essence of living, always represented by the courage to experience the infinite possibilities that life proposes to live.

Of course, life demands decisions at every moment. It’s true that our decisions often correspond to our beliefs. However, the great secret of life is precisely the exercise of our freedom. Freedom is always a challenge, after all, with freedom comes anguish. Anguish is what we feel when we realize that we will always depend on choices to live life to the fullest. It’s in the active participation in life, in relationships, that will define the directions in the world to which we belong. We cannot forget the decision-making power that is ours, taking responsibility for our own choices. Getting rid of what limits us, what challenges us in the act of choosing.

We cannot escape anguish and give up the freedom that is ours, allowing ourselves to be enslaved, letting ourselves live on autopilot, facing beliefs that limit us from seeing far beyond the possibilities we had previously imagined. Discarding pre-established recipes, the set of others’ desires that end up enslaving us. The truth is that it’s not worth being slaves so that in some way we have the feeling that we are not guilty of our choices, losing the unique perspective of choosing our own paths.

The simplest path often blinds us, disorients us, and takes away the pleasure of living. In the face of so many shortcuts that arise every day, there is also the opportunity to strengthen ourselves with the dignity of being free. Yes, we must recognize the need to live in a constant cycle of learning and be ready to realize when we are leading or being led in the choices in life. Never forget that the inability to choose our own desires makes life a slave life, without grace, frivolous, where dreams are lost in the infinite landfill of impotent sadness of being who we are. If we are capable of having control over part of our own life, let this part be a reflection of our control, of our actions, molded from our unique ability to reinvent ourselves at every moment, made from our choices, contemplated with fair and true actions and not justified. Acting according to our values and principles, allowing each of us to explore the best that nature has given us, always in pursuit of excellence. The freedom of choice is life in the present, and here is the main indicator of whether we are happy or not.

“The future is not a place where we are going, but the place we are creating. The path to it is not found, but built, and the act of doing it changes both the doer and the destination.” (John Schaar – Sociologist)

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Hello, I’m Marcello de Souza! I started my career in 1997 as a leader and manager of a large company in the IT and Telecom market. Since then, I have been involved in major projects structuring, implementing, and optimizing telecommunications networks in Brazil. Restless and passionate about behavioral and social psychology. In 2008, I decided to delve into the universe of the human mind. Since then, I have become a professional passionate about unraveling the secrets of human behavior and catalyzing positive changes in individuals and organizations. A Ph.D. in Social Psychology, with over 25 years of experience in Cognitive Behavioral Development & Human Organization. With a broad career, I highlight my roles as:

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