Recently Kelly McGonigal interviewed Matthieu Ricard. Matthieu, a buddhist monk and “the world happiest man according to brain scans”, was asked questions on compassion and happiness.His answers were striking.
I would like to share my thoughts on some of his statements.
“The way you act is a reflection of your world view”
Digesting that, my thoughts are this:
It makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it. But its implications are quite fargoing. It is one thing to have a positive world view that contributes to a thriving earth. But considering that for most people, 99% of what we do is a result of pure habit, reactive behaviours and automatic responses, what does that say about how we practice our world view.
Obviously, if we have a world view that is not constructive, helpful or positive, that will have its reflect on our behaviours. But even if we deliberately want to contribute to a world view that is positive, we need to find ways to do something about that 99% of behaviour that seems fully automatic. This is something we struggle with.
And if you are sleepwalking through life, you are part of the problem, you are offering no world view at all.
So how to make the world a better place?
Interviews like these make me wonder how I’m contributing to a better planet and how my world view and actions are supporting that. I think everybody – whether enforced by congruent actions or not – wants to make the world a better place.
Starting with yourself
If we can become better individuals, the world becomes a better place. I often wonder if all my attention on writing about personal development strategies, time management and productivity while living a balanced and spiritually rich life really is that useful in the large scheme of things. It’s not helping clean up the oil spills of the world or reanimating survivors of tragic earthquakes.
But I think if we do a couple of things, just starting with ourselves, we can start to work on aligning our world view and our actions with a positive future. Considering that most of our behaviour, say 99%, is determined by automatic behaviour, being able to influence what those behaviours are is absolutely fundamental.
The critical components to making the world a better by starting with ourselves then have to include:
1) Having the skill and the habit to be conscious of the quality of our thoughts, beliefs and actions
2) Being able to be deliberate about cultivating thoughts, actions and beliefs that make the world a better place
3) Cultivating compassion, joy, happiness, generosity and altruism as a skill
People have a lot of difficulty in changing their habits. I think the power of being able to change our habits is one of the most underestimated, undermarketed and undervalued keys to life success there is. And it is the key to a better world.
When we think of habits, we think of repetition.
Matthieu Ricard made another striking statement:
“Repetition is not mechanical, it is familiarisation”
We don’t think of compassion, happiness, feeling good as habits or skills to become so familiar with that it is your dominant way of being. But if we were to accomplish this, that 99% is shaped up to build on a positive world view.
The effects of your own habits extends well beyond yourself. Matthieu Ricard answered another great question on whether we should offer compassion to just anyone, by clarifying that when we extend compassion one another person, that receiving party also impacts other people. We don’t think of our one-on-one interactions that way do we?
We don’t consider that when we get angry at someone, that how you’ve treated that person has a direct effect on how that person is going to interact with other people. We just think ‘he deserved it’. But we effected everyone in the immediate vicinity. Throwing negativity, whether it is deserved or not, has effects that far exceed our intended recipient. And conversely, so do positive expressions, like compassion, or sharing a funny joke.
You touch on some very important issues here. I really believe working on our own inner selves to make more of our world views and habits conscious makes the world a better place – It’s probably even the only thing that can do so.
Blindly chasing after “good causes” or trying to make others change their behavior and do things our way while we ourselves stay stuck in zombie autopilot mode has never led to anything good.
On the other hand, if we become fully conscious of our own unconscious tendencies to aggress against others, and so can train ourselves to consciously refrain from doing that, we are contributing to a more peaceful world.
Thank you for your comment Nicole!
I think becoming more familiar (in Matthieu’s sense of the word) with positive emotions, looking at compassion, joy and gratitude as habits automatically reduces aggression, not only for ourselves but for the others we influence directly and indirectly. The familiarisation/habituation is a practice that isn’t easy, that is where we can use some help I think.
Peter, I’ve always felt that it starts with me. If we look to the other person for positive change in the world, it can never happen because everyone is waiting for the next one to take some action. It keeps getting passed around and never rests with anyone. Great post!
@Barbara
Thanks for the comment, you are right on!