Why would people rather suffer than change anything? Well, ladies and gentlemen, in this article I'm going to give you the exact answer to that. Because if we look at ourselves very honestly, it's deeply bizarre, isn't it?
We complain about our relationships, we bale at our jobs and we stress ourselves out about the future. We carry past traumas with us like a heavy backpack. We say we want to be happy, but as soon as the opportunity arises to really change, we become resistant.
We prefer to crawl away in our familiar, comfortable misery.
Why do we massively choose the pain of the known instead of the liberation of the unknown? The answer is simple, a bit confrontational, but once you understand it, you possess the key to total mental freedom.
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The lazy brain: The tyranny of energy efficiency
Let's start with the basics. Why do people prefer to suffer? It has to do with something very simple and organic: energy conservation.
Your brain is fundamentally a lazy organ[1]. It has one main goal: to keep you alive with as few calories as possible. Your unconscious, automatic programming is completely set up to conserve energy. And what takes the most energy? Right, conscious change - creating new patterns. Tearing down old highways in your head and creating a new forest path.
If over the course of your life you have developed unconscious programming to avoid things, for example, it is deeply ingrained. It's hardwired into our brain. Avoiding pain is our primary survival instinct. It's been in there for millions of years.
Once a highway is established in your brain that says, "When situation X arises, you should go into stress," your brain will always choose that highway. Why? Because it takes no energy. It's automatic. Whether that highway leads to burnout or chronic misery, your lazy brain doesn't care. It's nice and energy efficient.
And that's why we'd rather stay stuck in patterns that break us, than bother to reprogram. The familiar suffering simply feels biologically "cheaper" than the energy needed for change.
The elevator, the tiger and the illusion of the quest
Let's make that concrete. Imagine this: you once experienced panic in an elevator. Your unconscious brain immediately draws a conclusion: Elevator = Danger. From that moment on, you want to avoid that elevator. Every time you think about an elevator after that, it's a form of suffering. You have to take an elevator and think, "Oh, this is terrible."
We all get that. But now go change it. And there's the crux: it's much harder to change that panic than to get panic[2]. It's much easier to stress.
Why? Because the programming is already there. Now if I let a tiger loose in the room where you're sitting reading this, everyone would immediately panic. You don't have to think about that, it happens all by itself. And in a real tiger it is of course functional for survival.
But that tiger, fortunately, is not running loose. You know who does run loose? People. And before you know it, you've projected the fear of the tiger onto your fellow human beings and developed social anxiety.
And then what do we do? Then we launch a giant search.
- *"Where did this come from?"
- "Who did I copy this from? Is it perhaps something familiar?"
- "What have I been through before?"
Quite a journey of discovery. And imagine finally finding out after years of digging, "Oh, this is it." Yes, then go ahead and change it! Because the moment you know the cause, you're not there yet. Then suddenly you have to start changing something consciously. And that takes tons of energy.
So subconsciously, most people don't want that. They would rather suffer. Because change itself is also a suffering process. What if it doesn't work right away? Then that causes even more suffering. The road to it can be very tedious and uncomfortable, and so we give up. Then let's have the familiar pain.
Rumination: Stop ruminating like a cow
This mechanism is the reason entire tribes are ruminating all day long. Rumination is a fancy word for psychic rumination. Think of a cow in the pasture. It eats grass, swallows it, regurgitates it and chews on it again. That is exactly what we do with our misery.
We think about our past all day long. We ruminate on all those old traumas, on what was done to us and on all those failures. Well, I can tell you: that's not very helpful.
You see, what happens is that all those old thoughts and programs sit around you like a thick shell. You no longer live in reality. You live ín that shell of the past. You repeat yesterday's movie, hoping that today's outcome will be different. But the result of ruminating is always the same: you are taking the pain of the past directly into the present moment. You are your own executioner[3].
The Trap of Desire: Why hope is also a form of suffering
Now I can hear you thinking, "Yeah, but Edwin, I'm not so concerned with the past at all. On the contrary, I look very positively to the future! I long for a better life." And that is exactly the other side of the coin that most people completely fail to realize: every longing is essentially also a form of suffering.
Why? Because right now, right now, so apparently it's not good enough. You're basically saying to yourself, "Now I'm not okay. Only when I am there, in that imaginary future, then I can be happy."
You go with your mind to a fantasy. You can say, "Is that bad? It's a nice escape, isn't it, the idea that things will get better later?" Well, most people indeed don't mind, because it's a comfortable illusion. But in essence, you completely forget what it's really about. You forget that NOW, here and now, you are already complete. This is it. This moment is all there is.
Here you are happy. Why? Because in essence you are already happiness, love and peace. You just often can't feel that way. Why not? Because you are either ruminating in your past or fleeing into a future. Because of that constant mental time travel, you miss the greatest treasure you already are.
The homeopathic life
If you are not living in the now, you are living in a surrogate world. Anything you try to find outside the present moment to make yourself happy is a maximum dilution of reality.
It's almost like a homeopathic remedy where you really only see something of the active ingredient in it molecularly. Well, that's what you can obtain here in this world if you look for it outside yourself: almost nothing. You look for happiness in stuff, status or the hope of tomorrow.
It may give you a brief high, but it never satiates. It always leaves you empty.
Now is life. Not yesterday and not tomorrow.
Everything you do outside the now has suffering in it[4]. Or it is the suffering of: "Oh, my past hurts so much." Or it is the fear of a terrible future full of war, destruction and sorrow.
But even the idea that the future will be brighter has suffering in it. Because that means the present is not good. It remains a flight, and every flight is based on dissatisfaction. And dissatisfaction is suffering.
The big change is NOW
Let's sum things up. Why do people prefer to suffer rather than change?
People prefer to suffer from a nonexistent past or a nonexistent future. They long that the past should have been better, or they hope the future will save them. And meanwhile, they are now miserably bleeding to death.
The big change is NOW. Not tomorrow, not yesterday, but now. So how do you do that? Let go of your desires. Let go of your fears.
Yes, that's easier said than done. But what it's really about is this: stop taking that endless stream of thoughts seriously. Stop thinking too much about your past and stop constantly coloring the future. Resolutely withdraw your attention from those internal movies.
When you do, you will find that something special happens.
[Sighs deeply]
A tremendous sense of calm washes over you. A deep sense of relief washes over your body. The shell of old patterns simply falls away from you. You stop fighting, you stop running away, and you arrive at a place you’ve never really left... The simple “now” where everything is just fine.
Indeed, in the pure now, there is nothing wrong at all. There is no elevator you are stuck in, there is no old pain, and there is no stress about tomorrow. Everything is simply absolutely right. So stop choosing the familiar, low-energy suffering. Take the leap into the present moment. It will give you back your freedom and your life.
Helping people live in the now
Specifically, do you want to help people live in the now? Then knowledge of hypnosis is incredibly helpful. Come to the free master class on hypnosis for an introduction.
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Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
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