“Today me will live in the moment unless it is unpleasant in which case me will eat a cookie.” Cookie Monster
Who doesn’t love Cookie Monster? He helped raise a couple of generations of children and his childhood lessons were well done most of the time. Now that we are adults, we need to season his “wisdom” with adult thinking. It’s true, our mom’s cookies proved to be the perfect choice for our childhood problems yet as adults, I wonder if we don’t continue to refer to that same mentality when faced with our current decision-making process.
As children we must learn the decision-making process from our parents or our more experienced friends; say a certain Cookie Monster. Since children do not have the education or experience to make their own decisions, we should begin to teach them the process by asking them to select a choice from multiple options given to them by those who love and care for them. Eventually the entire process becomes the grown child’s responsibility. Bad decisions start to pile up if the lessons aren’t learned properly.
We cannot put all the blame on my friend Cookie Monster. Part of the problem can be found in human nature. The decision-making process is grounded around only two of the three selective outcomes we must use as adults. Those two are self-advancing outcomes and the third, that we should learn as an adult, has an altruistic outcome. In computer terms, the first two are the default programs of our naturally stimulated minds. All people will naturally and almost automatically desire either: Increase pleasure or two: Decrease pain; the two responses that our body naturally gravitates toward and the ones that our parents used to calm us down as children. The third, unnatural choice, will always have an unselfish bias; drawing on our education, experience, and the natural precepts each person is born with. This third outcome is the reason we have heroes. Their solution puts others’ wellbeing before their own.
When we find ourselves in a “miserable” situation, we are already in a fearful state of mind. It takes an extremely strong-willed person to break that fear-induced mindset in order to think in an unselfish manner. That is why some in society would have you believe and try to rationalize that some people have “no choice” but to do what they do or act the way they do. This is never true; we always have a choice.
There is always a right choice, a wrong choice and an acceptable concession. It is in the best interests of everyone that we help people to see past fear, pain, sorrow, shame or discomfort, guiding them to the right solution as often as possible. Of course, we cannot make anyone do this. The ultimate choice always rests firmly on the individual’s shoulder. The person or monster must make their own choices or choose to eat a cookie.
If this is my last post, I want all to know there was only one purpose for all that I have written; to have made a positive difference in the lives of others.
Anthony “Tony” Boquet, author of the soon to be released book, “The Bloodline of Wisdom; An Awakening of a Modern Solutionary”.