MORE OF THE SAME – THE AUTOMATIC PILOT

More of the same is one of the most practiced strategies of all. It seems, at times, that we are operating in automatic pilot mode. We do more of the same, even if it means getting the same bad results over and over again. The logical thing is to try something different, but our natural and inherent mechanism is to just do more of the same.

These pathways are patterns that we have established. The patterns become us and we are mechanical about them without any level of awareness.

You cannot choose another way until you become aware of the fact that you have been walking on the same well-trodden path.

Many people use the analogy of the brain as a computer. But if this is so, who is the programmer of the computer?

This is amazing but true – research shows that even computers tend to create patterns and repeat them. Even machines would rather do more of the same than something new.

The brain is an amazing processor, far more powerful than any Intel or AMD, but it is lazy and it generally looks for the easiest pathway, which is not necessarily the one that is good for you.

Think about it also in this way. Conditioning is like walking in the forest. Once you have made a trail, it is easier to walk this familiar path when you return to the forest again. You would walk it even if someone told you it would have been easier to make the trail on the flat river plains – instead of along hilly terrain.

Opening up a new trail is perceived as being a daring effort, whereas following the familiar path is seen as safe and comfortable. On the familiar path you already know what to expect: there won’t be too many surprises along this road.

After ten years you would have walked the same path so many times that you’d create a ditch. After twenty years you’d be knee high, and after forty years you’d be up to your neck in a pit. Now try to get out of it, it’s pretty difficult!

Most of our ‘trails’ were opened up with the help of our parents and teachers at a very young age. We are now treading along mostly beaten paths, and we are so familiar with them that we cannot even imagine there might be another way.

As children we did not have the tools to be discerning. Our parents are the product of another generation’s conditioning and although they meant well, not all the patterns they chose for us are the best.

But now we can re-evaluate the situation and make new choices.

Once we decide to try a different trail it will initially demand the sacrifice of effort.

Viewing effort as a drag is one of the patterns we need to replace.

Right effort may yield unimaginable results. As adults we can choose new pathways: we can research and decide where we want to go and open up a new trail. Once the effort has been invested we can start walking the new trail comfortably. And so one should not fear to abandon the old trail: there is nothing to lose, as we can always return to the old pattern.

If the mind is a processor, you are its programmer. Understand the way in which the machine works, and reprogram it to your benefit.

You have established a smoking pathway. It is a familiar pattern and you know what benefits you will reap along the way. You have been smoking for years and it has become your nature, so it is much easier to continue doing more of the same.

But there is another way to walk. It is a much better and more rewarding way – you will enjoy it a hundred times more.

To be a non-smoker will demand some initial effort, but it will soon become your nature.

You must have no hesitation at all and no fears whatsoever.