Your Conditioning Is The Culprit

When you see a newborn baby, a puppy, or even a baby elephant, there’s something about them that just looks . . . innocent.

They arrive without a history. No accumulated experiences showing them what to expect. No sense about how things are supposed to be.

They just respond to what’s happening in the moment . . . without all the baggage we humans eventually pick up along the way.

But, little by little, things start getting added.

Don’t touch that.

Don’t do that.

That’s good.

That’s bad.

You should.

You shouldn’t.

And before we know it, we’ve accumulated quite a collection of ideas about ourselves and the world around us . . . most of them picked up long before we were old enough to realize we were picking them up.

I call that conditioning.

And I’m certainly not suggesting we blame anybody for it . . . especially our parents. A lot of people do that.

Our parents were conditioned, too.

They were doing the best they could with what they had  earned.

So were their parents.

And here we are.

We’re all conditioned.

Which is probably why I find the pursuit of perfection a little strange.

Because if perfection means getting back to some completely pure, unadulterated version of ourselves . . . I’m guessing we’ve missed our window of opportunity.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

I’ve heard it said, “Don’t pursue perfection; pursue excellence.”

That appeals to me.

Because excellence leaves some room to move.

Perfection doesn’t.

With perfection, you either made it . . . or you didn’t.

Excellence is different.

You can get better.

You can adjust.

You can learn something.

You can try again.

Perfection can make you “bat shit crazy” because you’re chasing something you can never quite catch.

It’s a little like chasing the horizon.

You can walk toward it all day long, but it keeps moving away from you.

But maybe there’s something even more interesting going on here.

Maybe the problem isn’t that we’re imperfect.

Maybe the problem is that we’ve somehow been conditioned to believe that being imperfect is a problem.

Think about that.

We’re human.

We’re conditioned.

And a lot of what we think, believe, and automatically react to was learned somewhere along the way.

So perhaps the goal isn’t to get rid of all that conditioning.

Maybe you don’t have to fight it.

You don’t have to fix it.

You don’t have to blame anybody for it.

Maybe you just have to notice it.

Because when you notice the conditioning without automatically obeying it, something interesting happens.

You’ve interrupted the pattern.

And in that little interruption, there’s something you may not have realized you had given away.

Choice.

The conditioning says, “This happens . . . and this is what I do.”

But when you notice it, you can have a moment of:

“Oh . . . there it is again.”

And that little moment can be enough.

You don’t have to eliminate the conditioning.

You just have to notice it when it shows up.

Because every time you notice it without automatically following it, you’re reminded that the conditioning isn’t you.

It’s something you learned.

And if you learned it, you don’t necessarily have to keep obeying it.

Excellence is becoming aware of your conditioning in real time.

And that awareness gives you something conditioning can’t give you.

A choice . . . not a conditioned reaction.

But Your choice.

All the best,

John