Beliefs make the difference between a lifetime of joyous contribution and one of misery and devastation. These same beliefs cause some individuals to become heroes while others lead lives of quiet desperation. So. . . what are beliefs designed for? they are the guiding force to tell us what will lead to pain and pleasure. Whenever something happens in our life. . . our brain asks us two questions:What will this mean, pleasure or pain? and What must I do now to avoid pain or to gain pleasure? . The answer to these questions are based on our beliefs and our beliefs are driven by our generalizations about what we have learned could lead to pain and pleasure. These generalizations guide all of our actions and thus the direction and quality of our lives.
Have you ever thought? What makes a person with good upbringing and good background makes him behave very well, where as a person with a disturbed background or traumatic past behaves very violently. Which force makes us a hero, a criminal or a contributor? Why there is so much difference in human actions? We should know that human beings are not dull creatures who will do some thing without a reason. Even creatures do some thing for a reason! Whatever we do, there is always a reason for it. We may not be consciously aware of that reason, but there is undoubtedly a single driving force behind all human behaviors. This very force impacts every phase of our life, relationships, finances, body or our brain. So what is this force which is even controlling us now and will continue to do so till the rest of our life? PAIN AND PLEASURE! Whatever we do in life, is to either avoid pain or to gain pleasure.
We know that every thing we do in life is only for two reasons - either to avoid pain or to gain pleasure. Have you thought - what keeps you from approaching that man or woman of your dreams? What keeps us away from starting a new business, we have been planning for years? Why do we keep putting off the diet? Why do not we take complete control of our financial situation? What prevents us from doing whatever it takes to make our life exactly the way we wanted it to be or the way we had imagined? We fail to act simply because in that moment, we associate more pain to doing what is needed, rather than missing the opportunity. Our mind thinks like - What if we approach that person and we get rejected. What if the new business we started fails and we lose even the secure job we have. Like these many more things we think about. So we do not even TRY!