Sadly, that kind of visualization is not replacing a current unhealthy value
(materialism) with a better one. It’s just masturbating to your current value.
Real change would entail fantasizing what not wanting yachts in the first
place would feel like.
Fruitful visualization should be a little bit uncomfortable. It should
challenge you and be difficult to fathom. If it’s not, then it means that nothing
is changing.
The Feeling Brain doesn’t know the difference between past, present, and
future; that’s the Thinking Brain’s domain.^39 And one of the strategies our
Thinking Brain uses to nudge the Feeling Brain into the correct lane of life is
asking “what if” questions: What if you hated boats and instead spent your
time helping disabled kids? What if you didn’t have to prove anything to the
people in your life for them to like you? What if people’s unavailability has
more to do with them than it does with you?
Other times, you can just tell your Feeling Brain stories that might or
might not be true but that feel true. Jocko Willink, former Navy SEAL and
author, writes in his book Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual that he
wakes up at four thirty every morning because he imagines his enemy is
somewhere out there in the world.^40 He doesn’t know where, but he assumes
that his enemy wants to kill him. And he realizes that if he’s awake before his
enemy, that gives him an advantage. Willink developed this narrative for
himself while serving in the Iraq War, where there were actual enemies who
did want to kill him. But he has maintained that narrative since returning to
civilian life.
Objectively, the narrative Willink creates for himself makes no fucking
sense. Enemy? Where? But figuratively, emotionally, it is incredibly
powerful. Willink’s Feeling Brain still buys into it, and it still gets Willink up
every damn morning before some of us are done drinking from the night
before. That is the illusion of self-control.
Without these narratives—without developing a clear vision of the future
we desire, of the values we want to adopt, of the identities we want to shed or
step into—we are forever doomed to repeat the failures of our past pain. The
stories of our past define our identity. The stories of our future define our
hopes. And our ability to step into those narratives and live them, to make
them reality, is what gives our lives meaning.
Emotional Gravity
Emo Newton sat alone in his childhood bedroom. It was dark outside. He
didn’t know how long he had been awake, what time it was, or what day it