What Have You Done For (To) Me Lately?

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Of all the psychological phenomena and blind spots that influence the perceptual systems of human beings, I think that recency bias has a particularly fascinating role in how we see the world. Recency bias is the idea that it is our latest experiences of a person or happening which will come to most powerfully shape our present views and feelings about that person or event. From its workings, we see a distortion in perception that doesn’t fully capture and reflect the sum-total of experiences that we have had of that person or circumstances across a broader span of time, which would be a more accurate measure of the characteristics which define their nature. If we look closely at the landscape of our lives, we can see this bias play out in numerous domains.

In our most intimate relationships, arguments happen quite frequently because of undesirous behaviour that is processed as being habitually demonstrated, when in reality the likelihood is that it is more of an aberration in its occurrence. Many a partner has been left baffled and feeling outright resentful for a momentary shortcoming or lapse of attention that has turned into a stain on their character because what has been forgotten are the numerous instances in which they have previously done the thing that they are presently accused of not doing (taking out the bins, listening attentively, coming home on time, fill in the other blank…).

As we assess our own performance in the area of work, we have to get perspective when we encounter failure or haven’t met the standards that we are accustomed to holding. While these setbacks can sting in the moment that we experience them and threaten to dominate our thoughts as we ruminate on them, we should maintain the self-awareness to not get caught up in those feelings and internalise them as a pervasive feature of our work identity. After all, if we care to look, we will have an abundance of evidence to the contrary if we sift through our past successes and affirmations of competence. Here, it helps to remember that the experience of pain and suffering can have the effect of making us a prisoner to the moment where we think that because things are bad now, they will always be that way. It is only once we get some distance from the events that made us feel that way that we can escape that negativity bubble to appreciate that there is much more that we are doing right to validate what should be high levels of confidence in our abilities than what we are doing wrong.

Another domain in which this bias has an interesting effect is in the realm of politics. When people turn out to the polls to vote, often what they asking themselves of the candidates, even if they aren’t able to really articulate it, is a version of: what have you done for (to) me lately?, as in how do their existing or proposed policies improve or diminish their quality of life. In making this assessment, it can often be the case that the leader in power who is looking to be re-elected is at a disadvantage, especially if a number of their previous policies have been ineffective. This is often why leaders in such positions offer tax relief and make other generous election promises that they hope will allay concern with their shortcomings that are fresh in the mind of voters.

As I turn my mind towards what the result of the 2024 US presidential election might be, it is not clear whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be hurt more by the workings of this phenomena in the minds of voters. For Biden, some of the recent happenings that are likely to work against him are the porousness of the southern border that has led to a large spike in illegal immigration, increasing rates of violence crime across large cities that have taken a soft on crime approach and the feeling that as war rages in Ukraine and Gaza, the world has gotten less safe as a consequence of his passive foreign policy strategy of withdrawal and appeasement. For Trump, the recent memories of him when November rolls around will be of him sitting in a court room addressing the myriad of legal cases that accuse him of wrongdoing.

While this may work against him in reminding Americans of his character flaws (especially if he is found guilty of these charges), he is likely to shrewdly use the situation to his advantage by playing the martyr and pushing the narrative that he is unfairly being politically persecuted by his opponents to prevent him from dedicating time to his presidential campaign. The recent polling figures that have him ahead as preferred president shows that his strategy appears to be working. What Trump also has going for him is that how he governed in office (which drew its fair share of detractors) is more of a distant memory, given it has been four years since he held office, although the stain of his involvement in the events of January 6, 2021 is going to be difficult to airbrush from people’s memories. Compared to recent events in Biden’s presidency that critics can easily point to as examples of his weak leadership, Trump could benefit from the nostalgic rose tinted glasses effect that convinces many voters to believe that life was better during his term in office.

When one thinks about it, everything that we have experienced, positive or negative, happened recently…at one point in time, but life is a long game, where our character and progress is defined by consistency in behaviour and effort. This highlights the importance of knowing ourselves at a level that transcends what recent events may have to say about who we are. While these events are sure to convey some useful information about our circumstances and how we have shown up to participate in their unfolding, it isn’t wise to let them define us. With introspection, self-awareness and the resultant deeper understanding of who we are relative to how others might try to define us, we can reclaim the eternal virtues of perspective, presence and peace for today amidst the fresh to mind but fleeting disturbances that yesterday has brought about.

A Greenlight of my own (Part 2)

As I began to read through Wayne Dyer’s classic Manifest your Destiny, I started to feel not a comfort but a homeliness, in the sense that where this was leading was a place that the soul of my being could find rest in. Despite being ready to take the journey, this journey, like others of a transformational nature, started with trepidation at the prospect of walking into the unknown. It has been said that the spirit brings solace, but not immediately. As I worked my way through those first few chapters, I started to gain a greater understanding that I would have to work for any pearls of wisdom that I would come to.

Like many other self-help books of its genre, the implicit task of Dyer’s book was to apply what you learnt from its lessons to the context of your own life. Requiring of me an honesty and introspectiveness that I had not yet cultivated, I found opening up to being able to commence that work a formidable barrier. Without having really connected to myself prior to that point, my focus became more about absorbing as many insights as I could from it and then trusting that this opening into a deeper realm of consciousness would take place. Despite not knowing when these learnings would begin to impress themselves, I persisted in making it through to the end.   

While it was a very intense read, especially for someone who was not familiar with the spiritual mode of writing and the concept of ego that was explored throughout the work, I did feel as I was reading it that the work was speaking to me in a way that other books hadn’t done previously. Knowing now what my vocation is to connect others with their spiritual calling so that they can be led by that spirit to lead in the world, I had a core resonance with the teachings of the book that in essence was the spirit of it leading me to a more intimate relationship with my true self. Even as I was reading it and learning more about what the ego is, I started to see its presence in my life, and how it controlled so much of how I perceived the world and interacted in it.

From this, I began the journey of becoming conscious to my unconsciousness, which was a progressive step away from being unconscious to my unconsciousness. In this space or distance that was created, came the opportunity to look at myself anew in a purer light that was untainted by all of the conditioning that had informed who I understood myself to be up until that point in my life. While not necessarily perceiving myself to be a victim of my father’s death which had happened a few years earlier, I was still carrying a lot of emotional baggage that I had yet to process around the pain that the event had generated for me. As I learned about Dyer’s fractured relationship with his father and how he only came to reconcile his suffering from that after his father’s death, I found a hope that not only could I heal the wounds that I had suffered, but that I could emerge on the other side as a more integrated human being.

Despite the fullness of this healing not being completed at that time, one of the initial things that I took from his teachings on this was that we are not the pain that we (or the ego more specifically) identifies with. While no doubt it is there in our being as a consequence of the adversity that we have experienced, it doesn’t have the power to consume us and drive our behaviour unless we let it. To someone of my age at the time, that was transformative because I didn’t have the perspective to see myself as in some sense separate from the pain, and because of this the negativity that I felt so intensely became a guiding force in how I interfaced with the world. Why I think that my coming to these books was such a godsend for my mother was because prior to that time I was rebelling against her authority quite furiously which was causing a fair bit of tension between us. After reading that book, and others with similar themes, like Meeting the Shadow by Jeremiah Abrams and Connie Zweig, I could see the connection that this rebellion was an externalisation of the inner pain that I was harbouring. While being somewhat of an obvious insight now, at the time, in that well of suffering, it carried a larger weight and latent impetus to climb out of that well and experience freedom.  

Get an Idea (Part 2)

However it is that one would define the culture that we find life in today, what is undeniable is how much of it has been shaped by the ideas of the past. Here, my mind turns to the many great thinkers whose philosophical insights underpin the form that entire industries take today. Isaac Newton and the scientific revolution. Marie Curie and the field of radioactivity. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism as the guiding precept of legal order. And the list goes on and on. With these giants being agents of our collective evolution, they each laid in place the building blocks that have allowed us to see further than they were able to in their day, and ask deeper questions about the things they discovered. Having provided us with the knowledge and wisdom that we so often take for granted, it is their pioneering spirit that continues to inspire those who strive to awaken their own innate genius and move towards self-mastery.

This is perhaps no more true than for adherents of the perennial philosophy, which seeks to get at the heart of what it means to be fully human. With its immutable applicability that translates across generations, what is most amazing about reviewing its tenets is just how relevant its teachings are to modern life. While the context of life may have changed since its proponents wondered the earth many hundreds of years ago, the essence of what it ultimately means to live well hasn’t. For as long as I can remember, I have been an admirer of stoic thought and its urging for us to know ourselves in order to develop a virtuous character. How much better would the quality of our lives be if that was the path that we chose to emulate?

Another one of the books that I am currently working through is Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. While the title of that seminal work represents a flavour of meditation that is different from what you or I may hold in our mind as we think about the concept, this spiritually introspective practice was being advocated for by this former Roman Emperor in 150AD! Yet, it is only in relatively recent times that a large number of business leaders, politicians, entertainers and professional athletes, among others, have taken to the practice for the wide-ranging benefits that it delivers.

How do we become the person that we were created to be? This really is the universal question. Asking it of myself for more than two decades now, I have learned so much that has informed my own growth, and influenced how I instruct others to go about the task of developing themselves. Were I the same person I was twenty years ago, I would have much less to offer to those who I have a stewardship responsibility over, my children and students. This to me would be untenable and a betrayal of the actualising quality of life that we have been called to embody as we progress along our individual and collective journeys.

When you think about it, who we are in this moment is the sum total of the ideas that we have brought into over the course of our lifetime. While once upon a time, I used to categorise ideas as being good or bad, now I tend to judge them through the lens of being useful or not useful. For me the question is ‘does this idea increase the quality of my life?’ Quality here is meant to comprise spiritual nurturance and enrichment, not hedonic pleasure seeking ends. If an idea meets this criteria, then I will run with it and integrate its lessons into my life. If it doesn’t then I will put it on the shelf. There is no harm in learning something new, even if it is unworkable for you. Some ideas will automatically resonate with us while others will not. It is just a part of getting on our authentic path and finding something of value that we can move forward with. This is the test. If there is a genuine resonance, they are likely to work. If not, then they will be hindered in their functionality. Wisdom in this sense is knowing how to ‘pick the roses and leave the thorns’ as a good friend of mine, Joe, is fond of saying.

Master motivator, Tony Robbins, once mused that “it doesn’t take a lot of ideas to change your life and it doesn’t take a complicated idea to change your life. All that it takes is something that you are willing to take in and use.” Really simple but practical advice here. Ideas are what we make of them. Powerful in themselves, the real magic is to be found in their application. Being where the rubber meets the road, this is how they make a difference and carve out the legacy of those who are courageous enough to conceive and implement them for the betterment of humanity.