Everything man is and does is modified by learning and is therefore malleable. But once learned, these behaviour patterns, these habitual responses, these ways of interacting gradually sink below the surface of the mind and, like the admiral of a submerged submarine fleet, control from the depths. The hidden controls are usually experienced as though they were innate simply because they are not only ubiquitous but habitual as well.
Nothing about who we are is fixed. Everything we do, believe, avoid, repeat, and become is shaped by learning. Over time, those learned behaviours sink beneath conscious awareness. They stop feeling chosen and start feeling natural.
This is why what you consume is important. You are always learning, absorbing, and being shaped by your environment, quietly and continuously. What begins as behaviour will become identity. The mind forgets that it ever learned these patterns, so they are experienced as innate. If you move through life unaware of what you are consuming, you do not choose who you become. You simply become a product of your inputs.
Change is difficult. You are not fighting a single thought or decision. You are fighting a system that has been running your life for years. Until you surface those hidden controls, you will keep repeating the same behaviours while telling yourself you are choosing them.
Awareness is the first step. You cannot rewrite what you cannot see.
- Everything is malleable, formable, and therefore my responsibility.
- Conditioning does not happen at the level of choice, but beneath it. By the time a decision appears conscious, much of it has already happened.
- Watching what social and environmental conditioning does to people around me made me determined not to become a product of it.
Pay attention to what is shaping you.