Imaginefor a moment that you are a giraffe.
You have a two-meter-long neck, and you live inthe grasslands of the African savannah. Every day crowds of tourists passby and photograph you. But not only have the camera lenses separated youfrom the person. Probably the biggest difference separating you and yourgiraffe friends from people is that each decision you make has a momentaryeffect on your life. For example:· When a giraffe is hungry, he goes to a tree and begins to chewgreen foliage;· When a storm approaches the plain, it hides in dense thickets ofbushes;· Barely seeing the lion, the giraffe flees.Everyday, most giraffe decisions (what to eat, where to sleep, when to flee, etc.)has an immediate impact on his life.
This animal lives in the midst ofmomentary reactions, where life is closely related to the current moment.TheDelayed Return Environment Let’snow slightly change the plot and imagine ourselves as one of the tourists whowent on a safari. Unlike giraffes, people live in the so-calledenvironment of deferred reactions. The decisions that we take today maynot affect our current state. For example, if you do your job well, youwill receive a salary only after a few weeks.
If you save money, then youwill have something to live in your old age. Many aspects of modern lifeassume a delayed reward.Whilethe giraffe is concerned about the resolution of its pressing problems, such assaving from lions or subsistence, many of the problems that concern people arerelated to the future.
For example, while driving through a safari park, aperson might think: “I like a safari. It would be nice to find a parkkeeper and see giraffes every day. Is not it time for me to changejobs? Am I really in my place? “Unfortunately,being in the midst of deferred reactions leads to chronic stress and anxiety. Why does this happen? This is due to the fact that ourbrain is not designed to solve problems that have a delayed effect. The discrepancy between the structure of the human brain and thenew environment in which we find ourselves leads to chronic stresses and aconstant sense of anxiety. Within the last 100 years,we’ve gone from a very simple way of life to a much more complicated system. Wenow have cars, television, computers, internet, mobile, and everything inbetween! All the things that we encounter in our lives today have come aboutwithin a very short time frame.
In the scope of evolution, 100 years is just a blip in time. Ittook us thousands of years to evolve into hunting, gathering and eventually farming humans and last 100 years oftechnology evolution is just a blip in time. Therefore our brains arestill using the same processes from thousands of years ago.We always worry about bank, home, money, car and many futureproblems but our brain can rarely solve this problem. What to do with itThe first thing you can do is measurement.
You cannot be sure thatafter graduating from high school, we will have a prestigious job, but you cancalculate how many companies you have applied for an internship. You cannot be sure that when you will meet your love,but we can pay attention to how many people you introduced yourself. Rather than worrying about tomorrowfocus on present situations and making small decisions will reduce anxiety.
