Man : Mad World (Human Expectations)

Human World

• A  life, of which people are caught in the competitiveness for wealth and power  
• Every day  busy commuting and ending with sitting in a small cubicle for 8 hours. And repeating it over and over again.  Why do we do this?
•  Been programmed and bred to be robots.

• From the moment we are born,

o   We strive to do things our elders are capable of doing. To crawl so that we can walk like mommy; we want to learn how to run as fast as daddy does.

•  In nursery school, we simply cannot wait to start attending “big school”.

•  In high/secondary school, we dream the days of first ‘real’ love, first ‘real’ friendship and to experience ‘the real world’.

§  After realising that there is actually a real world beyond all the assignments and sleepless study nights spent in university, we dream of working and having our dream jobs, cars and homes.

Why

• A combination of peer pressure, parental pressure, and expectation set by society causes us as individuals to fall in line and follow whatever the norm is. Since a young age, we are told to get a :

o  good education,

o  get a good job, then

o  Support your own family.

The Syndrome

§  Always seem to be in a rush; searching for something and having no idea what we are searching for! This phenomenon is The Rat Race syndrome and at least 99, 99 % of the human population suffers from it.

§  Metaphorically compared to a lab rat running in a maze or wheel. Constantly keeps doing something pointless under the belief that it will get a different outcome each time it tries. It believes that, one day, it will escape.

§  This pursuit is never-ending, pointless and self-defeating.

§  The Rat Race Syndrome is a chronic phenomenon that could lead to fatality.

o  Could end up dead inside. Spending our whole lives chasing exterior things could lead to one neglecting our inner selves.

The toll

 i.     Student

§  Students rate academic stress as their greatest source of stress, exceeding family problems and bullying.

o   Rates of stress-related illness,

o   depression, anxiety, and

o   Burnout is on the rise.

o   Academic-performance-enhancing drugs, such as the ADHD drug

o   Teenage suicide rates, particularly among teenage girls, have increased dramatically in recent years.

§  More than 70% of young people don’t get amount of sleep for their stage of development (and sleep is essential for healthy brain development).

§  Children have lost 12 hours of free time each week while homework time has increased by 50%.

§  Homework is now given as early as first grade and reaches its peak in high/secondary school where students now spend up to seven hours a night on homework.

§  And talk about being unprepared; 40% of students require remedial classes when they get to college/university.

§  The frustration among teachers, the sadness among students, and the fear and pain felt by parents bring the cold, hard data to life.

ii.  Career People

The lazy work syndrome

• Using work as an excuse to be lazy. Lazy to work to

o  be  own business , and

o  Lazy to a balanced life between work and self time.

• Working for others. Waking up, go to work, come home, relax a little, and then start all over again the next day.
• The security of a large company may be enough to satisfy their lifestyle.

o  To work 40 hour work per week.

o  having someone to answer to,

o  Happy to take annual leave to relax with their families.

o  Stress of a personal business may not be worth to many people comparable to working for others.

o  Being accountable for the welfare of other employees may not be something they like to manage.

• For these reason, one of many, is why most people will never escape the rat race.

The Problem

§  Entrenched Habits.

o   Habits and a way of life such as spending hours each day commuting, racing against the clock, working 9 to 5. It is a serious challenge to break these habits.

§  Comfort Zone.

o   Our personal collection of habits, favourable or not, are what makes up our individual comfort zones.

o   We remain in our comfort zones, acting our habits, because it feels comfortable and familiar, not because it's necessarily the best thing for us.

§  Complacent

o   To start to become aware of our behaviour and its detrimental effects and will cause stress and panics. To totally erase this stress, follow blindly the rat race and trap.

Metamorphosis - a new view

§  When a caterpillar changes into a butterfly, the caterpillar disintegrates into a kind of chemical soup inside the cocoon and it is out of this that the butterfly emerges.

§  To change our lifestyle in a way that is sustainable (i.e. robust, self-contained and long-lived) we need to completely break down our old decision-making process and come up with some totally different approaches to motivating ourselves.

§  Will power.

• Will power to force ourselves to act despite what our values may be telling us otherwise.

o   Stop: Take a moment to step back and reflect on everything that is happening around you.

o   Drop: Take small stride, there’s no rush!

o   Roll: Just as a huge snowball rolling down a hill began its journey as a tiny snowflake; remember that the journey begins from within.

§  When engaging in will power,

•  force extra tasks into the time available 

•   Expending even more energy on projects and activities that are not helpful to us

•  This just leads to more stress.

§  First we need to free up some space and time in which to address how we want our life to change.

Stages in Transformation 

1) Responsibility

§  Taking responsibility for changing our lives is all about deciding to respond rather than react to situations we find ourselves in.

§  When we react to situations, we act out of habit without questioning why we make the choices we make.

§  When we respond/act to situations, we engage and question our habits and consciously making new choices more appropriate for the person we are now.

§  So, this is about deciding to take control of our life as it is now rather than reacting in accordance with our conditioning from the past.

2) Re-view

§  Who are we now and who do we want to become?

§  What we do in the present will determine who we become in the future. E.g. your physical health, and notice to what extent the state of your health now has been determined by the decisions you've made in the past about what to eat, how to exercise and when and how to relax. 

3) Renewal

§  The discovery, being more aware and sensitive of our real needs than of what others tell us we need to be and do. It's about knowing at our very core what it is that's important to us.

§  A values upgrading exercise. Knowing our core values - what really makes us motivate, not what we'd like other people to think makes us motivate! –

§  The difference between coercion and inspiration -,

• Need to be more honest with ourselves about what drives us and where our strengths and weaknesses lie.

• Nurturing, co-ordinating and harnessing our personal resources for maximum effect.

§  A lifestyle change, moving from a disciplinary approach to a visionary approach. For example, spending time in nature or reading inspirational material or painting or playing music or meditating. Do take some time to reflect on what inspiration material is for you and then carry this knowledge into the next stage.

4) Re-create

§  The inspiration and truths you unveil will point towards some new possibilities for you to explore. Put together, piece by piece, a new life - not imposed but something that will work naturally and authentically for you. You’ll feel fully energise by then.

§  Build one new decision into your daily and weekly regime. For example, buy your food from local suppliers rather than through a supermarket, pay a weekly visit to your nearest farmers' market, buy what you can from your grocery list from there and then only buy the balance from your usual supermarket.

5) Balanced Life

 There ought to be fairly balanced:

1) Internal (Mind, Heart, Health)

• Mind: Challenging yourself intellectually vs. creating opportunities for your mind to rest

• Heart: Giving love vs. receiving love

• Health: Eating, drinking, exercising properly vs. resting and treating yourself

2) External (Work, Social, Family, Fun)

• Work: Pushing yourself to achieve goals vs. seeing the bigger picture and enjoying the ride

• Social: Satisfying your social desires vs. taking time for yourself

•  Family: Fulfilling your familial responsibilities vs. creating healthy boundaries

•  Fun: Allocating time for things you enjoy doing vs. making sure you don’t overdo it

The biggest single factor that keeps us in a high stress, high paced lifestyle when we know it is not doing us any good is our habits. 
For most of us who have been raised in this belief, this is so deeply entrenched that we rarely stop to even question whether there is another way.