Thread by @eriktorenberg

An empowering idea:

There is a gap between stimulus and response, and the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use our space

That is, it’s not what others do or even our own mistakes that hurt us the most. It is our response to those things.

Being responsible means being able to control your response (“response-able) and take ownership for your choices.

Genetic Determinism — your grandparents did it to you

Psychic determinism — your parents did it to you

Environmental determinism — your boss, spouse, economic situation, national politics — something else is responsible for your circumstances.

Each of these maps is based on stimulus/response theory we think of in connection w/ pavlov’s experiment w/ dogs.

The basic idea is that we are conditioned to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus.

But how accurately do these deterministic maps describer reality? Do they become self-fulfilling prophecies? Are they falsifiable?

Victor Frankl was a psychologist who suffered in a concentration camp.

He realized that although Nazis could control his entire environment, they could not take away the last of human freedoms

He was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him

Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to chose that response

Through discipline, he exercised his small, embryonic freedom until it grew larger and larger,

They had more liberty — options to choose from, but he had more freedom — more internal power to exercise his options.

Between stimulus and response, there is a gap — and the key to both our growth and happiness is how we use that gap.

We can use the following to create and extend the space:

Imagination - ability to create in our minds beyond present reality

Conscience - deep inner awareness f right and wrong, of principles that govern behavior, sense of the free to which our thoughts and actions are in harmony with them

Independent will - ability to act based on self-awareness , free of all influences.

Animals can’t do this. They can’t change their programming because they’re not even aware of it.

Deterministic paradigm comes primarily from study of animals (and mentally ill people)

Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all.

In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

Levels:

At the 1st level, there’s an awareness of the space between stimulus and response.

At next level it may involve a choice, such as not to get back at or to get even.

At next level, to ask forgiveness.

At next level, to forgive

And next level, to not take offense.