If You Can't Let Go of Past Mistakes, You Must Watch This - Jordan Peterson

Certainly have noticed that as I've got older and I've done things various Accomplished isn't exactly the right word I've participated in many things that I'm pleased to have participated in them But wouldn't necessarily go back and participate in them again It's sort of as if when you do something and you finish it It's as if it's done You don't have to do it again and and the possibility that a life well-lived Exhausts itself in some fundamental sense so that you can be Satisfied let's say with with what you With what you were There is some psychological evidence that bears on this if you ask people what they regret Especially as they get older what they generally report is things not done So they don't regret so much mistakes. They've made although of course people obviously regret mistakes. They've made as well, so they don't exactly regret sins of Commission right errors that they've actively made they they miss they they they torment themselves For opportunities that had presented themselves that they did not let's say exploit or engage in and I think that's worth thinking about too because One thing that I have become convinced about with regards to human consciousness which I think is equivalent to the spark of divinity in some sense that our Fundamental stories insist has been placed within us is that? Human consciousness is that faculty that confronts potential itself? I think there's good neurological evidence for this by the way for those of you who are scientifically minded because we build circuits within us for habitual action that we've practiced many times that seem to run in a very Deterministic fashion, and we are a strange combination of deterministic and non-deterministic as far as I can tell but what our consciousness Seems to be for is to encounter those things that we have not yet Encountered seem to me to be those things that have not yet been brought into being And so you could say that what our consciousness is for is For the encounter with potential you know that our consciousness is further. It's not for the past It's not even for the present It's to transform the future into the present and then really that that's what our consciousness does when you wake up in the morning You have a new day ahead of you, and the day could take you in very many directions The weeks and the years all of that can take you in very many directions And you have some apprehension about what those directions might be you have some apprehension about what role your choices might make in Transforming that potential into one form of Actuality or another I mean you certainly know that there are dreadful mistakes that you might be very Tempted to make that would produce all manner of hail around you and still be tempted to do it It seems like it's sitting there right in front of you as a possibility You also know that you know you could Haul yourself up out of bed and attend to your duties and do the sorts of things that you're supposed to and set a few things right that day and that week and that likely things would at least not be worse, and they would probably be better and I Believe that I do believe that I don't understand how this can be the case I don't understand how it is that consciousness consciousness can function in that way because I think to understand that We would have to understand what it means for the future to be only Potential rather than actuality and who the hell understands that I mean no one and then we'd have to understand How it is that our conscious choices and our conscious ethical choices? transform that potentiality into Actuality into reality into the present and the past and we certainly But we certainly act as if we believe that that's what we do we upgrade ourselves for example When we do a bad job of it We're upset with our children and those we love if we don't believe that they're living up to their potential We're guilty and ashamed when we make choices that we feel are inappropriate We understand to some degree that the manner in which time lays itself out Has something to do with the ethics of our choice and again, I would say that's a very deep idea I think it's a I think it's I think it's the most true idea. I know That's very emphasized that idea emphasized in Ancient religious stories such as those that are outlied in Genesis or Genesis with its strange insistence that you know God is that which brings order out of chaos formless potential Generates the world out of formless potential and that we're somehow made in that image Which which seems to me to be the case and that the proper way by the way to go about Acting in that image is to act in Relationship to the potential that confronts you with truth and with courage with careful Articulation that's the logos and that if you do that, then what you bring forth is is good the central figure of Western culture is Christ and we can look at that psychologically because Christ is the dying and Resurrecting hero and what does that mean psychologically? Well, it means that You learn things painfully and When you learn something painfully a part of you has to die, that's the pain you know when a dream is shattered for example a huge part of you that Constituted that dream maybe even the biological substrate of that dream has to be Stripped away and burned and so Life is a constant process of death and rebirth and to participate in that fully is to allow yourself to be redeemed by it and So the good is that process of death and rebirth? Voluntarily undertaken it's like you're not as good as you could be So you let that part of you die and if someone comes along and says, you know There's some dead wood here and it needs to be burned off Well, that stuff's still a bit alive when that burns it's gonna hurt it's like yeah, well no kidding But maybe the thing that emerges in its place is something better and I think this is the secret of human beings This is what we're like, you know unlike any other creature is that we can let our old selves die and let our new selves be born and That's what we should do if you're obsessed by memories of the past More than 18 months old and most of those are negative So anxiety provoking most often then there's a lot of you that stuck in the past And what that means is you didn't map the territory well enough and the parts of your brain that are alarm systems Anxiety systems are saying no. No, there's holes in the way. You're looking at the world There's holes in the way that you're looking in the world and you fell in them once and you don't know where they are And you don't know how to fill them and you don't know how to walk around them And so you can't forget them. You can't forget them. You can't forget them You can't forget them if you have recurring nightmares, for example, or a good example of that sort of thing happened But in any case if you have memories like that, you look you remember them. They make you feel anxious and negative You're stuck back there. Your body is still reacting as if there's an emergency That could happen again that you haven't fixed. It doesn't matter if it was your fault That's irrelevant because the alarm system doesn't care like when your smoke detector goes off. It isn't Relevant whether it was your fault The smoke detector just says house is on fire and that's a bad thing and your anxiety systems are like that If if they're tagging old memories with anxiety Then you have to do something about it or you will be tortured by those memories forever Because that's how the alarm system works. And so maybe you need to go back there and clean things up You've got to figure out. Okay. Well How did this happen? What sort of role did I play even if it's a minor role that doesn't matter because Point is is that you don't want to be put in the same vulnerable position again So anything you can do to strengthen yourself is good, you know And often if it's a really old memory, like maybe you were a child, it's you're not a child now So you probably have a variety of techniques at hand that you could use to deal with the situation like that if it came up now and so you have to update that part of your brain that still thinks you're four and Lots of people have parts of them that are still Stuck in some traumatic childhood experience the way that your positive emotion systems work They run on the neurochemical called dopamine the dopamine system kicks in with a kick of positive emotion if you're going somewhere That's worth going and so that's worth knowing. It's really worth knowing. It's like, okay You want a little bit of positivity in your life? Well, how do you get it? Well, you've got to get the system It's almost deep like it's the left hemisphere system for most people not that that's particularly relevant, but it's a It is a standalone neurochemical system. It's rooted very very deeply in the brain's exploratory circuitry so very ancient ancient system and It's happy when You have somewhere to go. That's the first thing and then it's also happy when you're going there You need to be going somewhere and there needs to be a pathway in order for you to feel good You