09 Fleeing Away is Not an Option

An amazing talk from David Goggins about strengthening our brains.

Our brains tend to get lazy when we overuse our “smart gadgets.” When we go through unpleasurable moments, feeling unsatisfying, all we have is our brain. You know that search engine isn’t always able to give you 100% legit answers.

Some might think you have your social life, but what’s next?

To wake you up from the beautiful drama you dreamed of, you are bonded and alone for 24 hours with your brain.

What will happen if you let your brain sits in the driver’s seat of your journey?

When unpleasant situations come, our brains try to solve the problems by talking and creating multiple scenarios. If you let your head takes charge, it can control you to the level that you want to believe that that’s the best option and decision, or on the other side, it creates a scenario where you don’t want to consider it is coming from yours.

We should know how to control our brains. Instead of giving all the rights to the brain, we need to let our brains learn which direction we’re headed to and how we would like to pursue it.

We can start by asking, “how am i going to make this work?”

Remember, working hard is not enough. We must go back and forth to undo and redo the unpleasant moments to be “okay” with them. Sometimes we must push ourselves to be vulnerable several times to let our brains or minds give in.

When our brains give in to the situation we keep repeatedly doing, our brains adapt to it and eventually find a way to solve it rather than running away from it.

Adapting to the unpleasant feeling is what we call a new norm. I know it’s hard for us to be broken several times, but that is what it takes to strengthen our minds. Most of the time, new norms come from unsatisfying and unpleasant feelings.

Same with a Korean drama titled, “It’s Okay to be Not Okay,” it’s okay to conclude that you can’t always do it. Because what? You can do things many people can but are unwilling to do.

“You can even run on broken legs.“

Fight or flight is the right concept to describe these situations.

Even though we often find ourselves in a disadvantageous position, we are still holding on. Rather than being a coward and fleeing away, we should consider taking a leap of faith and finding a way to get through because there is no better option than that.

When we are suffering, the anger goes away because our brain chooses the simple conclusion to run away. That’s why it’s important to train our minds not to be a coward.

It might take time to adapt to this new norm, but nothing can stop us as long as we want to do it.