Recently, I have talked about how to keep motivation for logical people. Our logical senses help. Today, I will explain why philosophy substitutes success visualization.
How to improve our lives
Sometimes, we want to improve our lives. Many problems afflict us.
Our unique individuality makes us desire it. We cannot live as our surroundings. However, we often don’t know how to use our uniqueness. That puts us in a more difficult situation than those around us.
One breakthrough is using our logical sense. It shows us the path to develop the future while enjoying ourselves without patience, as I explained in several recent articles.
The problem of success visualization
However, there is a problem. We have a curse called success visualization. That hinders our logical sense.
If we are empathic and logical, we have two ways to change the future:
- Visualization of success: This is an empathic way. We imagine an ideal state and make efforts toward its realization. However, it requires patience and is vulnerable to change. Empathy is a feature for stabilization, not for change. The harder we try, the more our motivation decreases, and it becomes painful.
- Future development while enjoying our growth: This is a logical way. We focus on the skills we want now and grow while having fun. Although we cannot predict the future, new opportunities take us to a better future. Logic is a feature for change and adaptation, not for stabilization.
They tell us it is better to rely on the logical way to change the current situation. Visualization of success is a way for non-logical people. If we have logical sense, relying on that talent is more efficient.
How to escape from success visualization
However, it is often hard to escape from success visualization because it gives us a strong excitement. Picture the situation when we imagine a successful state. We feel a strong attraction to that image. That drives us, even if we know we have to be patient.
People sometimes call this mental phenomenon a mental complex. We cannot stop it. It is as if someone else inside us is controlling us.
For this reason, I call it a curse. Success visualization is a shackle for empathic, logical people who want to change.
That is why we want to escape from it. We prefer a logical path, where the future develops joyfully without patience and stagnation.
Creating our philosophy can solve this problem. It substitutes the excitement of success visualization. In other words, philosophy in a logical way plays the same role as success visualization in an empathic way.
Today, I will explain why.
Why do we need our own philosophy?
Philosophy in logic plays the same role as success visualization in empathy. It calms us down instead of exciting us.
In other words, the absence of philosophy makes us unstoppable in the outburst of a mental complex because there is no restraining function to stop the excitement inside us.
Success visualization heats us up. Philosophy cools us down. The balance between those two stabilizes our minds.
However, we have often not cultivated our philosophy.
Perhaps this is because we could not change the environment in childhood. We could not do anything but follow orders from stronger people, like parents or teachers. We had to focus on stabilizing the environment.
That gave us too strong an imagination, especially for future risks, and too weak a philosophy.
Creating philosophy
We can develop our philosophy even from now on.
Creating philosophy is simple. We make sense. In other words, we live with consistency.
Perhaps you feel a contradiction in my words if you have read this blog these months. I often said we have duality, which makes us inconsistent. Inconsistency is our nature.
Still, logic can create consistency. We are consistent in the sense that we are inconsistent. Knowing that allows us to behave with the opposite actions.
Updating our philosophy
It means that we have updated our philosophy to be more universal.
In the past, we might have believed we had to be consistent on one side of values. An example is the bias that we must create value for others and rest less.
However, after updating our philosophy, we understand that it is natural to have two contradictory aspects inside us.
It means we created a new reason and based our lives on it. This principle of life is philosophy.
Although it is the absolute rule for ourselves, it never restricts us. Rather, it gives us freedom to express our individuality. This is because we create principles based on our individuality. It eliminates unnecessary motivations driven by empathy.
How philosophy stabilizes our minds
Philosophy protects us from the inconsistency of others’ values. It reduces our confusion about values and clarifies our honest wants.
The typical example of confusion is our mental complex.
It is caused by only a single lie of our parents: ‘Child’s success is thanks to the good teachings of the parents; child’s failure is the child’s fault (or others’ fault).’
It doesn’t make sense. If the child’s success is the parent’s achievement, the child’s failure should be their fault.
Giving up on having the doubt has caused our confusion about values.
An example of fake logic
Philosophy allows us to discern logical contradictions. There are many unreasonable teachings, especially in the spiritual world.
For example, a spiritualist insisted, “My method makes you happy. The science has proven it!”
It was logic as follows:
- “When imagining happiness, the brain releases specific hormones.”
- “When I experimented on the subjects with my spiritual method, that hormone appeared.”
- “That is why I am the first person in the world who scientifically created happiness with a spiritual method!”
The logical breakdown
It doesn’t make sense. If releasing brain hormones means happiness, then even drugs can make people happy.
Imagine the situation: people are lying on the beds in the hospital. They sleep all year round. They are being injected with a drug that releases hormones in their brains.
If he insists that the state of releasing specific brain hormones is happiness, are they happy? No! Happiness is something more comprehensive.
Releasing brain hormones is a small part of happiness. Even struggling with a hard situation could be a part of happiness after a while. It is unreasonable to assume it is the entirety of happiness when he reproduced only one part.
It is the same logic as the example of curry introduced in an earlier article (this article).
That fake logic confuses us.
How to build principles
Empathy cannot determine such lies. It is the ability to stabilize the environment, as explained in the beginning of this article. If many people believe the lie, it doesn’t make us doubt it.
On the other hand, logical sense can distinguish it. It is the feature that allows us to change. Even if everyone believes the lie is right, we can deny it and follow our path based on our logical sense.
That frees us from a mental complex. We can go our own path and reject the logic of ‘Our success is thanks to the good teachings of the parents; our failure is our fault (or others’ fault).’
An example of principles
Principles are absolute, simple rules we have to follow. If we break it, we will lose the ability to stop the outburst of empathy, so we need to create it carefully. We have to make sure not to betray it.
Philosophy consists of several principles.
In my case, my philosophy has two principles, although I formalized it for the first time.
- I will not lie, at least to myself.
- I will accept my duality (the two contradictory wants inside me).
They tell us how to live.
Living an awkward life
It means we live an awkward life due to those rules. We will often feel that it might be better to live more flexibly and tell excuses. Almost no one has such a constraint that binds oneself.
However, such a lifestyle confuses us because we lose the control of empathy.
That is why I recommend you develop your own philosophy. Copying mine will not work because we have to create logic ourselves. Look at the world broadly and historically. Think of what is right or wrong. Then, live according to these principles.
That gives us a clear life without confusion. We will know we are freed from a mental complex and the curse of success visualization.
Conclusion
That is how to escape from success visualization. Creating our philosophy can solve this problem.
It substitutes the excitement of success visualization.
This logic might allow you to clear your confusion and improve your life more easily.
Thank you for reading this article. I hope to see you in the next one.
