The Importance of Self-Reflection and Self-Correction.

Thinking habits seem to form in some parts due to environmental, typically in the form of inputs from the people around us.  These inputs are then "attached" to a "core", much like a snowball that gets bigger as it rolls down a hill.  The "core" itself appears to stem from how people feel about themselves.

My thoughts today linger on that "core" of who we are and our ability to change it.  

By default we are a blank slate.   As we start to take in input from our many sensory receptors from touch to taste to hearing, we start to combine those many inputs and start to form a more complex model that eventually becomes the "core".  This process begins at the very beginning when we're conceived and continues to build through out our life time.
However, at some point, I've noticed in many people, that once that "core" has been formed to a certain degree, the ideas that emerge from it and guide that person's behavior are solidly set.  This prevents the ability to process inputs that the "core" and ideas do not agree with.  The behavior mostly associated to this phenomenon is stubborness, which lead to a whole host of other behaviors.  How many times have we encountered someone who justifies their action or inaction with "that's just the way I am."?  This is such a "cop out" because we all have the ability to change for the better.  If we spend all of our time with people who have the same ideas we do, we don't get to grow.  In fact, we stagnate and become increasingly stubborn and reluctant to change.

Changes in behavior manifest from changes to the "core".  To change the core for the better, the importance for Self-Reflection can hardly be overstated.  There are various ways to interpret Self-Reflection, but the type of reflection that I've notice, that leads to positive change is the type most people aren't very fond of.  The True Self-Reflection is to be able to think back to your behaviors and the thoughts that drove those behaviors that lead to unwanted outcomes and to objectively look at them.  Be prepared to face the possibility that your behaviors and the thoughts behind them are bad and maybe even evil in intention.  It's very important to be objective because only then can we say to ourselves "wow, I was a jerk." or "I'm really not a nice guy, no wonder she doesn't like me." or even "I want to be healthy, but I'm so lazy."  By being able to be objective when reflecting on ourselves, we can acknowledge and apply changes to better ourselves and get to where we want.

The very important thing not to do is to reflect objectively and then just accept the negatives.  If we feel unhappy with our job whether that be the pay grade or level or even if we're not in the right industry we want to be in.  Take stock of why that is.  Are we applying ourselves the best we can, to the best of our ability?  Are we missing a certain skill to move further or to even change industries?  Rather than accepting that we might be lazy, or "don't have time." or not handy, and just accept our fate to be unhappy with where we are, which in turns manifests into being unhappy with who we are.  We should work out how we might be able to achieve what we want.  When we've worked out how to achieve it, we can then apply it and make Self-Corrections.  It may take time, a lot of time, but like the tortoise, as long as we don't stop, we'll get to our goal.

Self-Correction takes work, a lot of it, and consistently.  Because of this, I've noticed many people sign themselves off to many different excuses.  Rightly so, if we can justify our unhappiness by blaming some force we can't control, it's not our fault, this makes us "feel" better.  This is perhaps the biggest delusion, because in making ourselves "feel" better by blaming something else, we continue down the road of unhappiness that grows and grows.  For each stage of growth in that unhappiness, the ability to correct our path becomes all that much harder.

My own experiences has led me to the conclusion that True Self-Reflection working in tandem with Self-Correction is the road to true personal happiness.  While that happiness isn't immediate, it becomes more apparent as time goes on.  The hope, is that we can all achieve the happiness we so want in the life time that we have.