How Beliefs Direct Your Action

Originally, published on 08/23/2022 in Medium (website link).

An Apology

Before starting, I’d like to apologize for not having published for awhile. I became involved with another writing project that has taken up a lot of my attention. However, during the time away, I saw that there were ideas that were a better fit here.

I hope that my next stage here is better and stronger from where I left off. Most importantly, I hope to regain the privilege of your reading.

Two Questions

Now, let’s start by asking two questions:

What do you believe?
Where do your beliefs come from?

It’s Probably BS

To be clear, these questions don’t refer to any specific formal faith nor religious tradition. I recognize that “different things work for different people.” Specifically, I want to examine what we believe and how these beliefs direct our actions.

A long time ago, I used to think that belief, faith and manifestation were all BS. Setting goals? It didn’t seem like a lot of fun and too much work. Believing in goals makes them real? C’mon, now. At that time, ideas like these made no sense.

Faith, Belief and Manifestation

Before continuing, I want to say that I don’t mean manifestation in a metaphysical, “woo-woo” way. I’m only referring to turning thoughts into real things.

It’s interesting how getting additional life experience helps clarify what you already knew. Read this again. This was my case with belief, faith and manifestation. For me, I read various self-improvement/self-improvement books and delved further into my religious faith. Then, a lot made more sense. Quickly, I started to see how ideas repeated across different contexts. These ideas were nearly identical. If they repeated, then, maybe there are good reasons that they were valid across separate contexts (ex. different religious traditions, various philosophies)?

More Than Faith

Something I feel is a “dark” flaw that can be present in faith, belief and manifestation is excessive individualism.

Something that I’ve noticed in self-help/self-improvement literature are the overly simplified ideas that you just need to believe. If your desired outcome(s) didn’t happen, then, you probably didn’t believe strongly enough (disclaimer: I am being completely sarcastic).

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America, at the end of Chapter 5: “God Wants You To Be Rich,” she wrote,

“Everywhere he or she hears the same message-that you can have all that stuff…if only you believe that you can. But always, in a hissed undertone, there is a darker message that if you don’t have all that you want, if you feel sick, discouraged or defeated, you have only yourself to blame.”

While I feel that Ehrenreich had, in my opinion, an overly cynical slant, I still feel that this passage holds a lot of truth. When I started reading similar material, I thought that I couldn’t/didn’t accomplish my goals because I didn’t believe enough. While somewhat true, I think the larger problems were that I had no plan and little intention. I was missing a lot.

I think that my situation of missing more than just faith is hardly atypical. People like me may not realize that we need more. Similarly, content creators in this vein need to remember this, too. Truthfully, there are probably some that care more about money than in the accuracy and wholeness of what they present.

Takes More Than Just Me

Having discussed lack of faith, I think that there’s, also, the opposite: having excessive (untrue) faith in oneself.

For example, on a broad level, let’s look at (social) equity. According to Merriam-Webster, it provided a statement (website link) to frame it

“The idea that sometimes sameness of treatment (equality) does not result in proportional fairness (equity) is one way that these words are distinguished from each other, even in similar contexts.”

Many people, formerly including me, use these words as if they are identical, which they’re not. I used to think that “everyone’s the same” and that everyone just needs to be “treated the same.” I didn’t realize that I thought it better to ignore real differences rather than respectfully acknowledging them.

To provide a real example of people ignoring differences is their romanticized view on “bootstrapping.” When I speak about “bootstrapping,” I mean this definition, per Merriam-Webster (website link),

“to promote or develop by initiative and effort with little or not assistance”

To further simply this definition, often, people that (successfully) bootstrap say,

“…if I did ‘it,’ then, others should, too.”

A common “sub-example” is, when someone says that they worked their way through college/university. Perhaps, they graduated with few student loans that were (relatively) paid off quickly. However, there are a few things that this hypothetical person hasn’t considered (or has ignored):

This person was born into a connected family.
Through their family, this person knew people in various occupations that could provide early access to occupational information or experiences including shadowing.
They went to a top-level public school or private school that provided all necessary educational supports and the best classes/courses.
After graduating from high school, there were less obstacles for entering college/university because there were numerous family members that graduated from there: college legacy (website link).
This person may have gone to college/university decades ago, when educational expenses (ex. credit hours, various fees, etc.) were significantly less. As a result, there needed much less student loans.
When applying for internships or for a post-graduation job, family members called in favors to facilitate access to “prestigious,” high-paying employers.

Summary:

This person was born into a connected family.
This person was able to get early access to occupational information/experiences and top educational resources.
This person’s family connections helped them get into their desired college/university.
Their college/university expenses were significantly less than present-day equivalents because they attended awhile ago.
This person use favors to access high-paying jobs.
How and where they were born was essential for achieving their present success.

I want to be clear that I’m neither faulting nor criticizing anyone with comparable advantages. However, I think that it’s (knowingly or unknowingly) dishonest to say that “anyone” can do what they did. Additionally, it’s dishonest to say or (legitimately) believe that they “did it themselves” because it’s simply not true: their connections helped a lot.

If we look back at what Merriam-Webster said about equity, this individual had a more access to resources/connections and (educational) supports. There’s nothing that’s “the same” between them and someone without this access.

Turning Beliefs Into Reality

Returning to faith, belief (driven by faith), manifestation (making your goals or wishes real) and individualism (assuming personal responsibility), I feel that each is part of the equation for many people successfully achieving their goals. It’s took me (too many) years to realize this.

It’s okay if you (like me) took too long to reach similar conclusions. Also, it may still be possible to pivot and correct your life path. It may still be possible to add more intention to your life to realize more goals that mean something to you and aren’t decided by others. This correction can be more difficult without an intentional plan support by a belief system that directs your future actions. I can’t say enough how your ability to achieve your goals begins and ends with what you believe.

HOW DO/WILL YOUR BELIEFS DIRECT WHAT YOU SAY, DO AND THINK?

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