Whether our behavioral equations were adapted from others, or they were created by some strong emotional experience – eventually, I found myself troubled by the same philosophical question… and the question is why? Why do we have such a strong tendency to follow equations? What is so magical about them that everyone (including me as I’m typing these very words…) just happily follow them – no questions asked.

Well, I believe that the answer is fairly practical, and is linked to the core idea of an equation. The essence of equations (just like in mathematics) is achieving a desired result from a given input. Instead of going over the slow, painful and messy process of analyzing our thoughts and behavior, we could just follow a pre-made equation that offers us a much clearer way to get to the results we want. In other words, we love equations because they are about results, and we love results.

The marketing power of equations.

This led me to a deeper question… Are we really getting the results we want? I’m not talking about the rationalization that we often do in order to explain to ourselves that we are achieving what we want, and that we should be happy about it. I’m talking about something much more authentic that doesn’t need to be maintained by our cognitive system. Something that we don’t need to explain to ourselves, but rather feel within.

I believe that for the most of us, the answer to the last question isn’t a whopping yes! It means that some patterns in our behavior aren’t getting us where we really want to be. In other words, some of the equations we follow aren’t beneficial to us. But how could we even know which parts of our behavior are equation-following and which parts belong to our “real nature”? Is there a way to tell the difference between them? Does it even matter? What’s going on? I’m losing it! Ahhhhh! If this is the kind of thought process you are getting when you’re thinking about such matters, you are not alone! The reason is that our equations are buried so deep in our behavioral system that they are just impossible to trace. After working in the same place for years, following the social code seems like acting normal. After a hurtful experience in a relationship, we just tend to believe that this is how relationships work.

So, is there a way to trace our “non-profiting” equations in our system after all? Well, I believe that it’s possible using the following distinction…

Whenever we act “out of” these equations, we feel something – a small twitch. Usually, we use our rationalization capabilities to make it disappear, but it is still there. This twitch is a signal coming from our emotional system, telling us that something in our behavior isn’t truly connected with our beliefs. This signal usually comes as a weird feeling that bothers us in a subtle way. If we had an imaginary emotional hall, our instinct would be to force our twitches to sit as far as possible from the main stage.

At least this time poor Mr. twitches got a seat!

However, if we allow “mister twitches” to be at the center of our stage just for a little while, magical things start to happen. As I’ve discovered for myself, doing so without judging or being frustrated “because it ruins all the fun” made me realize hidden feelings that had tried to rise up to the surface for a long time… “In second thought, he did actually hurt my feelings when he said that, even if he did it with humor”, “I feel bothered that everyone was so enthusiastic about it, when I just find it pretty boring”, etc.

If you’ve read other posts in my blog, you’ll notice that most of them are about sharing my lifelong twitches. For example, I’ve witnessed the adapted equation saying: “if you want to celebrate or to feel loosened up → add alcohol to the mix” but my strong twitches about it made me realize that it wasn’t for me. My perfectionism led me to create an associative equation saying: “if everything will be routed through me → the mission will be completed as needed” but whenever I’d followed it, I felt that something was wrong, until I’ve realized some crucial missing factors: not trusting others, not explaining my rationale to them, etc. My desire to feel socially special made me follow the adapted equation saying: “If you’ll get yourself a social label → you will feel special” which came with the price of being obligated to that label at all costs, until I’ve decided to change my perception of the concept “special”.

Don’t get me wrong… during our experiences with others, it is impossible to digest every situation and analyze every aspect of it. Moreover, the harder and challenging the situation is, the more we are reluctant to run a replay of it in our emotional system. However, when it comes to the things that matter us the most, we should really consider hitting that replay button. The reason is that when our mind is free to analyze rather than respond, we can see whether the equations we follow make sense for us or not. By doing so, we could create a reality, in which it will not feel like we are following anymore. A reality, in which we don’t need to find ways to silence our twitches because they had peacefully gone away. A reality, in which we could finally feel free.