Effecting the cause
This was a significant realization that I had during the silent meditation retreat here at MAPLE last month. I think the idea itself is very deep, and my understanding of it is still deepening. The approach of “faking it till you make it” seems to be ingrained in me, probably resulting from a combination of societal messaging with my own lived experiences of times this strategy has worked. The classic example that comes to mind of faking it till you make it is with confidence. If you’re not confident, this strategy advises you to just act like you are—by doing things that confident people do, you’ll naturally start thinking of yourself as more confident, which will translate into actual increased confidence. I think this does work, but the reason it works is because many of the actions that you would take (like adopting a more positive mindset) are things that do have existing positive loops with confidence. In other words, both of these statements are true: if you’re confident, you