How to change my life?
To honestly answer the question: how to change my life, you need to know how accurate the foundation of your beliefs is, and if those beliefs are those you think they are, or probably are artificial ones that serve specific purposes.
Erin Pizzey is the woman who opened the world’s first shelter for battered women. But her studies and experience have shown that men are equally abused by their wives.
In 1971 Erin Pizzey opened the first domestic violence shelter for women and children in England with her own money.
Pizzey’s studies and experience showed her that women are just as violent as men. And that domestic violence is equal. Something that over the last 40 years, over 200 studies have proven.
Pizzey was the first to recognize the problem of domestic violence and to do something to fix it.
Her work is why there are thousands of shelters for abused women and children around the world today. But not for men. And not because Pizzey did not try to do something about it. Soon she began to openly express her views on the violence men face from their partners. And she divided female victims into two types. Those who were victims, and those who were victims but were attracted to the kind of man that abuses women.
Her study titled “Comparative Study of Battered Women and Violence-Prone Women” showed just that, and her results have been validated by subsequent research. In her book entitled “Prone to Violence” Pizzey states that she was struck by society’s indifference to how domestic violence works. In her book, she attributed much of the causes to childhood trauma and hormonal reactions.
But all of this did not fit with the feminist agenda.
Since then, like today, she has insisted without any scientific data to support the view that women are exclusively the victims of violence and never the perpetrators. The feminist movement needed government subsidies and recognition, among other things, and soon turned against Pizzey.
Erin’s case is just one of many with a similar scenario. Scientific evidence is being set by side because it conflicts with the interests of specific organizations or groups of people.
However, the scariest part is that those organizations, by using stereotypes and people’s emotions, create a super-simplified state of mind in millions of people that easily and without further thinking segment people in good and bad so that they fit their agenda.
Similarly to the feminist movement, other movements and organizations are using the same methods to achieve their goals. To name some: the me-too movement, the Greta Thunberg movement, the selective sensitivity on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and so on.
Sometimes the difference between the preached message and the organization’s practice is so abstract that someone wonders how it can be that people do continue to support this organization? What is the reason why someone continues to support a cause even if all evidence is there that the cause is wrong?
“Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.”
In other words, there has to be some degree of alteration in our beliefs and behaviors to make conflicting attitudes acceptable. We mitigate the conflict by denying to see the truth.
The question on how to change my life cannot be answered based on “forbidden” truths.
Not seeing the truth is the basis of making wrong decisions since the foundation of the right choices and actions is based on understanding reality.
The next question, of course, is how real reality is, and that is a good one.
Reality is also the reality each one of us perceives as such.
There is the scientific reality which is what is. In less formal sciences, however again reality can be more easily varied.
The challenging part is accepting and seeing the reality for ourselves. This is an essential step in self-improvement. One thing is admitting publicly what is correct or not (that is the part where your integrity comes in place). Another aspect is recognizing for yourself and acknowledging to yourself what is real.
I think all successful people are realists and have a good feeling about what is real and what is not. They can see quite clearly how a situation looks like and take the proper measures. Regardless of if they admit it publicly, they can see the reality. Most of us can see what is real, accepting that as such, however for ourselves is the challenging part. But you must accept it to be able to make the right decisions.
A very bold and obvious example of people not wanting to see reality is complaining. There is no reason to complain about something at all.
Either you can change something, so… there is no need to complain, or you can not change it, so embrace it and get in comfort with it. A skill of course is to recognize the things you can change and the things you cannot.
As William Ernest Henley said: I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
Take ownership
How to change my life: You must take ownership of it, understand what you can change and the things you cannot, and take the appropriate action. IT IS ONLY THEN that progress is going to come into your life. The more you believe that others make decisions for your life, the more you will find comfort in that, and the less probable it is going to be to take action against it.
Coming from Greece, a country between west and east, not only geographically but also culturally, I can tell you with confidence that the more humans distance themselves from logic, the more this vacuum is filled with supernatural beliefs beyond our reach that determine our lives.
My advice is:
Go on a room, just you, with no one there. Look yourself in the mirror and be honest with yourself only. Only with yourself, no one is going to know; no one is going to find out. Accept who you are and who you are not, what you can do to change things, and which things can not be changed. Embrace the second ones and act for the things that you can change.
Once you accept yourself as it is, you will take criticism less seriously; your actions are going to chase a purpose and are going to be the right ones.
