When do we really make a specific choice of which action to take?
Is it when the thought first comes to us "Whoa...that looks fun!" or does the choice crux lie down in the murky depths of our subconscious lurking among all the "we Should, Ought to, Must" cultural imperatives that mold our daily paths?
Or is it another problem entirely, a causal chain of choices in which the bad one at the end garners all the attention but in reality the outcome is predetermined by the cascade of prior choices? In Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) this type of logical retracement of prior choices is used to show addicts where they lost control of their addictive behaviors and fell off the wagon. It is NOT when they drank the beer...: It is when they made the first pivotal decision to put themselves at risk in situations they knew to be dangerous. Choosing to "be with the boys," justifying "hanging with users," "I just go to the bar to play pool." It is like a game of dominoes, in that the last domino to fall did not fall in a vacuum; it fell because the first domino got knocked over.
I point out this type of behavior because quite frankly, we are all addicts of one sort or another who justify all sorts of actions to put ourselves where we really ought not to be. And no, I am not talking drug addiction...
Do we habitually lose our tempers, act pridefully, eat too much, drive recklessly, binge shop, etc, etc, etc...? Yup, we all do stuff like this. We all make resolutions to quit doing stuff like this, break our promises, and then pick ourselves up to do it again.
We drive ourselves insane doing the same thing over and over again because we focus on changing the end choice, instead of the causal chain that brought us to the tipping point. The reason why this A.A. technique is so effective for changing addictive behaviors is that it goes back to the pivot point where a choice can be made without the addiction already raging in our hearts and destroying our willpower.
The time to choose to control your temper is before you get mad.
The best way to not drink is to stay out of places where there is alcohol.
This is really simple logically, but like I said, we are all addicts, and addicts are masters at justifying what they want to do. So...., I invite us to all think of one instance this past week where we made a choice we wish we would not of, and instead of agonizing over the moment of weakness, look at the chain of events that led us there with a clear, non-judging eye. Trace back until you reach a choice where you could have chosen a different course without hardly any willpower at all. That is your pivot point.
For example: I ate 6 donuts and ruined my diet yesterday. So I start tracing back my thoughts and choices until I realize an hour before I bought the donuts I had decided to stop by the store on the way home to look at the day old bakery items. I did not specifically have donuts in mind, just good deals. But seeing the donuts on sale made me hungry for them, so instead of buying one I bought twelve because they were such a good deal...and before I got home half of them were gone!
So when was my decision to eat 6 donuts conceived? More to the point, where could I have changed the whole course of events and not ever had to test my willpower against a yummy pastry? In the car, where I could have decided to go straight home and cook dinner:-)
Finding the pivot points for our passions/addictions allows us to make better choices without trying to fight against ingrained habits, appetites, and passions. Changing our behavior there yields exponentially greater dividends than trying to put out a raging fire or living with self-inflicted remorse.
Now I know...pivot points are great, right? The trick of pivot points is learning to listen to yourself well enough to know when you are getting close to one, so you can change your choice while it is still easy to do so. That takes practice, or more specifically it IS a practice of mindfulness and being present minded. All this internal work that we talk about of meditation, awareness, letting go of things we cannot control, being happy in the present moment???? This is where they pay off: In self-awareness that we can use in the present moment to create our preferred future! Pretty cool, eh:-) I have a whole blog devoted to being present minded, so if the concepts mentioned here intrigue you check out my other posts on more specifics on how to Be present minded.
Oh..., and just a little teaser preview for my next post, which is an extension (literally!) on the concept of pivot points, which are also called fulcrums. I will introduce some tools that act as levers and greatly amplify our pivot points to create and beautify our lives.
To recap, when we try to change a behavior at the very end of a cascade of prior choices, this is what it looks like.
Very, very hard to do! The fulcrum, prior choices and addictive behavior all conspire to make the load (choice) too heavy to move. That is why we so often fall into destructive habits of behavior. If we bring our lives into balance by recognizing our pivot points, changes in behavior become much easier.
But the power inherent in levers and fulcrums goes far beyond merely balancing our lives...it gives the power to radically transform our lives! That is the subject of my next post:-) There is a saying I really love by Archimedes:
Will and choice expressed intentionally in the present moment are our levers and fulcrums: With them we can do incredible things.
Namaste.
As always images are from Google and should have links/credits embedded in the image. If you like my work, please upvote, resteem, and leave comments...especially leave comments! I know this is a short treatment of a very deep topic, and I would love to continue our conversation:-)