Lessons
Class Introduction
03:56 2The 3 Sets of Conclusions
05:37 3Personal Conclusions
05:48 4Social Conclusions
08:40 5Life Conclusions
07:19 6Life Perspective
04:38 7How Your Conclusions Shape Your Personality
08:32 8You Are the Saboteur
07:37Lesson Info
Living an Authentic Life
Time, you've already worked out what is it you concluded about yourself, what are your social conclusions, what are your life conclusions. You've also started to understand your own personality, how it works against you. Believe me, I know, your personality works for you too. That's the whole dichotomy of a personality. It works both for and against you. As I already told you, being independent is a significant part of my personality. I shared the episode with a large piece of furniture, how it works against me. But how it works for me is I'm very self-generative. I get things done. I don't really need a lot of input. I don't need partnerships. I can do it all on my own. It works both for and against me. Which brings me to this next real question, how do we break out of this personality, how do I break out of being independent, how do I break out of the kind of patterns and problems that being independent brings to my life? Well, to do this, we first must look at the most important phi...
losophical teachings of the 19th and 20th centuries. More importantly, what we're out to discover here is the why for a personality, why would we have one. Human beings live their lives in pursuit. Some philosophers have said the pursuit of happiness. If you look a little deeper, at some level we're all out to be a certain way, to live our lives in a certain way, and to experience ourselves in a certain way. But as far as I'm concerned, we are living lives of pursuit. If we are living lives in the pursuit of happiness, by its very nature, we must also be in pursuit of despair, because some of us are going to reach that happiness and some not. If you look at our society, that's how people exist, in that paradigm between despair and happiness. But there's a major problem with this pursuit of happiness for a human being. What's the problem? You can't have happiness which negates the whole pursuit because the reasoning behind pursuing anything is that somehow you'll have it, you'll accomplish it. You can't accomplish happiness. The thing you're after, you can't have it. Why can't you have it? Because you're not a vessel. You're not something that happiness is contained in. See, you're more like a conduit. You're more like something that happiness passes through. So the pursuit of happiness is a fruitless one, because even when you get there, it doesn't last. Look at your accomplishments in life. Look at how in your mind's eye, you'd set them up. When I get that thing, life is going to turn out for me. And yet somehow you ended up back at square one again because even in your greatest accomplishments, the experience of accomplishment, the experience of happiness was fleeting. Then you were reminded of what you'd concluded, and then your personality kicked in to take you through the whole process again. That is the problem with pursuing happiness. You can't have it. Which begs the question, what are we to do then, Mr. Scottish Man? Well I'm going to tell you. Like I said earlier, you're a miracle of being. You're a human being. The most important part of that is the being part. You see, in this life, you've become a very definitive polarized being. But when life started, you were a miracle of being. You were self-expression. You were able to flick between this way of being and that way of being and this way of being and that way of being, and they were all available to you. My three-year-old son, if he's upset, tickle his tummy. He'll turn it around in a heartbeat. Try doing that with your mother. It won't go well. Why, because your mom is definitively your mom. It's not easy to break out of that anymore. Another way to say this is, in every given moment of every day, there exists a possibility for you to be and act in different ways. Now the example that I like to use for this is quantum physics. See there's a theory in quantum physics that there exists a endless series of parallel universes. In every moment of every time, there exists the potential of another world, another universe, all existing concurrently, they all run alongside each other. Here's the thing I want you to understand. That's what it is to be a human being. That in every single moment of every day, there exists the potential for you to be someone that you've never been before, and that your access, your doorway to that, is to finally see who you've become as a default kind of you. All the way down to yourselves. Who you have become is one universe in a multitude of parallel universes. You see, you guys, free will for a human being can be found in the way they act that contradicts with the way that they act by default. Another way to say that is, real freedom for a human being is your ability to act in a moment of time in a way that you typically wouldn't. In fact, that really is what life's about. It's about relating to yourself. Life is a grand experiment. It's an opportunity for you to express yourself and to act in ways that extend us and expand this bag of skin and bones that we've all become. The alternative? The alternative is living life as you are right now, constrained by the you that you've become. The reality is, that you, is nothing more than a bad habit. You're habitually you. But I want you to understand is there's a magical life out there for you. A magical life where you're available for the impossible, where you're open to the uncertain, where you start to get beyond the constraints of how you've turned out. That is authentic living. Living beyond the constraints of that identity and those sets of conclusions. Thank you for joining us.
Ratings and Reviews
Merrily Bjerkestrand
Gary, thank you for sharing your insights and building our understanding by "connecting the dots" of life and living as human beings. Your message and words are powerful and thought-provoking. More importantly, life-changing for those who wish to get out of their box, over their barriers, and live an authentic and genuinely free life beyond the velvet rope. These lessons were paced well and I appreciated the flow of connected thoughts and reasoning. Your message and points are both simple and complex at the same time. They create knowledge and understanding but are only useful if applied and put into action. Just like most of philosophy! You did a great job of identifying steps needed for personal change without reducing the need for individual action. Your bonus message of keeping one's promises to oneself sealed the deal. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
a Creativelive Student
I loved this talk! Much to ponder about our conclusions driving our lives. Our choices. How we can end up on autopilot. And how we start out with so much possibility and by bringing in awareness to our patterns we can begin to open up to operating from possibility instead narrow minded repetition. The multi universe perspective! Love that! I would love a longer more in depth class with Gary. Would be great! Thank you!
Glenys Morgan
I love that Gary is straight to the point and didn't delve into who screwed us up before we reached mid-20's - each of us has a distinct personality and challenges to deal with in our present life. The shortest course on behaviour change but I got so much out of each short segment, read the transcript as well and spent time in self-analysis. Life is one long lesson and often difficult to work through. Staying stuck in a rut is far more difficult. Thanks Gary, excellent class. And thanks to Creative Live for all the amazing classes that expand my gray matter!