Day 309 of personal insights giving smiles – Mindlessness and Mindfulness.
Mindlessness happens when you are not totally present to the things that are happening around you. Based on your past experiences your mind may have some fixed perceptions about people and issues. Your perceptions may be different from reality and you may commit an error which will cost you an emotional or material loss. In this case you allow your mind to function in whatever way it wants.
You act unconsciously without thinking much about it, you create rigid norms in your mind, you have preconceived fixed ideas, certain prejudices etc. in your mind. These pre-set mental blocks will give you a fixed perspective of whatever happens around you. It will not allow you to interpret and handle your circumstances in a unique way. Through force of habit you may do certain things absent-absentmindedly. You develop some beliefs over the years and you hold on to whatever you strongly believe. Your bias against people and situations will hamper your ability to make the best use of opportunities. This kind of mindless behavior can lead to a lot of sour relationships both in your personal and your professional life.
Mindfulness happens when you are totally present and involved in whatever is happening around you. There is both self-awareness as well as social awareness. All your mental senses are used in the given situation.
You may have a preconceived category set in your mind, still you will analyze and make sense of the perceived object. Your mindset may keep changing the old categories or may create new categories about it. You apply your mind to every new moment which you consider distinct from the past. You are aware that you may have a generalized view about certain sets of people, but you won’t allow such view to influence your behavior towards them. Instead of viewing the situation from only one angle, you keep looking at it in a different way and then you may have many perspectives about the same situation. This kind of mindful behavior helps you to take each new day as it comes and each day becomes a continuous process of self- adventure!
So which personal insight gave you a smile today?
Please share your experience of personal insights that made you smile.
Recent Comments