Going Somewhere

Hikaru is presently undergoing his "training" and he goes "poo-poo" in the toilet. He flushes the toilet, and wonders where the poo-poo goes. "Go follow poo-poo!" he says. We respond, "The poo-poo went to the ocean."



A random question that came to me was, "Where are we going?" That is, what determines our path in life? It all goes somewhere, right? After a little thought, I felt that that life's direction has to do a lot with our belief system and values.

There are many influences in society that could affect our beliefs and values. It probably starts from the influence of our cultural backgrounds, our parents, our communities, our schools and teachers, our books (media), but we also form our own beliefs from individual life experiences and observations.

Eventually, we figure out an optimal path guided by our values -- matched to our personality, environment, responsibilities, health, whatever -- including the things we find to be "fun" (and the things we fear). But what makes stuff complicated, though, is that our beliefs and values can change with time. I sketched out a diagram...



Changing our beliefs and values will shift one's fundamental goals, motivations, attitudes, behavior -- our direction in life. Unlike the poo-poo guided by gravity and eventually sliding to the ocean, though, does this mean we could end up somewhere else? I suppose, it depends.

"Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is."
--Bhagavad Gita