That was/is me, Jim, business man/banker/father/husband…I lived as my Human Being pretty much 24/7 for decades. Always reaching and striving for more. The next promotion, bigger house, newer car, fancier boat. All in the relentless pursuit of happiness. Frequently in a state of worry or fear about the future. But it was never enough and although I had moments of true happiness, I was never deeply and sustainably happy. Then, it all came crashing down.
My Human Being, exactly like yours, is an amazing creation of God. With physical and mental capabilities that are truly miraculous and, to this day, still not fully understood by science. But, our Human Beings are designed for one thing and one thing only, survival. Fundamentally this is why it is so difficult for Human Beings to be deeply and consistently happy. Let’s look at some of the characteristics of our Human Being:
True Nature: Mortal, birth and death mark the beginning and end of existence. Individual oriented; separate from all others; I; me; mine.
Operating Systems: Chemical, mental and physical structures and systems that are intricately connected in order to:
sense and respond to survival threats.
maintain status quo in the absence of threats.
procreate.
Core Objective: Survival, avoid death at all costs
Core Emotion: Fear
Satisfaction Comes From: Survival and the constant accumulation of things that are believed to support survival. Money, stuff, power. The status quo. And also, procreation.
Time Zone: Primarily past or future
You may be a little shocked about the survival commentary. But, you have to accept that our Human Being hasn’t evolved much biologically since the days when we really were running from the saber tooth tiger in a eat or be eaten reality. Every day as our senses constantly scan for and pick-up threats, the chemical and physical reaction in our body is immediate and profound. Glands release stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. Our breathing becomes more shallow and urgent. Our heart rate increases. All of this is to prepare our physical body for fight or flight. And in today’s world these things are most commonly triggered by a testy conversation, or a difficult meeting at work, or the antics of our three year old, or being cutoff in traffic. For some of us this happens multiple times per day and it doesn’t just affect our chemical/mental/emotional/physical interactions, medical science has proven it affects our health and general sense of well being too.
You may wonder why fear is the core emotion for our Human Being. The reason is simple and emanates from the never-ending question of what we need to fear as threats to our survival. So, we are constantly scanning for threats or challenges to our survival and of course this leads to worry, anxiety, frustration, anger and other emotions tied to fear that are certainly not a place of happiness, or even health.
One way we try to manage all of this is to seek a steady state where we are not perceiving threats that trigger this chain reaction, and then be resistant to change from that steady state. Our Human Being strives for the status quo. One of the ways we do this is to nearly constantly ruminate about the past to lock in our knowledge of what helped us stay in the safe steady state, and what threats did we sense that we need to try to avoid in the future. And, when we are not thinking about the past we are thinking, if not worrying, about the future. What could happen in the future that will be a threat to my safe steady state, or even worse, to my survival? This is sometimes called our Monkey Mind and if you just observe your thoughts for a few minutes you’ll see that your Human Being is living primarily in the past and future. Two places that do not exist. One, the past, is simply a mental image of what happened but no longer exists. The second, the future, is simply a fantasy, another mental image, of what could happen but also doesn’t exist. And, in the experience of my Human Being, never happens they way I fantasize it will anyway. My Human Being, and your’s, typically lives in a place of illusion or fantasy, but rarely in the only place of reality which is here and now, in this moment.
Of course our Human Being wants to be happy. The problem is that the concept of happiness for the Human Being is completely tied to the survival instinct. So, the Human Being has to block out the reality of mortality. Death is obviously the opposite of survival. And, the Human Being must do everything it can to increase the odds of survival. This includes out performing my competitors for resources that I perceive to be scarce, and accumulating as many resources as I can to reduce the threat of scarcity. Happiness then becomes dependent upon winning the affection of another; achieving the next promotion at work; buying the new outfit, fancier car, bigger house. But, it’s never enough. There is no end to this striving because we never reach a point where we believe survival is no longer threatened. We are momentarily happen with individual achievements and acquisitions, and then the bar goes up and we have to get the next things, once again before we can be happy.
It may all seem hopeless but I assure you it is not. Step one is to be aware that, for all of it’s magnificent qualities, our Human Being simply operates this way. It is the reality of our hardware and software and, left unchecked, our Human Being will operate this way from early childhood until the day of death. Once we are aware of this we can modify our way of living to engage our Soul Being and to counteract the Human Being tendencies before or as they arise.
In the next post we will explore our Soul Being and it’s very different priorities and outlook on life. Then, we will begin to explore what happiness really is and how to modify our way of living to live more as a Soul Being, less as a Human Being, and find deep and sustained happiness. Stay tuned!
Thanks so much for reading!
Jim
