2.b 控制自己的大脑

Make Time Your Friend 2.b: Controlling Your Brain

> By Li Xiaolai · 2008-05-18 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20111113100733/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/425.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

If we don't control our own brains, or don't even realize at all that we can control our brains, we can only be controlled by our brains. Let's first describe a scene that is especially common in daily life.

> Perhaps because an exam is approaching, perhaps because your work requires it, you now have to finish reading a book. This book can't possibly be a romance novel that you can skim ten lines at a glance; it requires you to read it carefully and understand it; it may even require you to go on and create something according to the principles or rules it sets out before you can count as having truly learned it.
>
> After a bout of struggle, you finally decide to "officially begin"! You sit down on your favorite sofa, open to some page and start reading. [Translator's note: the original writes 你做到你喜欢的沙发上 ("you do onto your favorite sofa"), a slip for 坐到, "sit down on"; translated by the intended sense] After a while, you suddenly feel very thirsty, so you go out to look for something to drink. You open the fridge, grab a bottle of a drink without thinking, and pour it into a glass. You've just taken a sip when it suddenly comes to you: no, you shouldn't be drinking this kind of sugary drink! Honestly! It's all your mom's fault: no matter how many times you tell her, she never remembers to keep the sugary drinks and the sugar-free drinks separate. So you run into your mom's bedroom and argue with her for a while, only to find in the end that it does no good, and you have no choice but to come back resentfully and rearrange the fridge.
>
> You go back to the sofa and carry on reading your book. After reading for a while, you change position. As luck would have it, you accidentally press the TV remote, and the TV suddenly lights up. This show's host happens to be your favorite—wow, the dress she's wearing today is so pretty! But how come today's topic is so boring?! You can't help watching this show for a while anyway, and then idly flip through the other channels with the remote…… Luckily, at this moment none of several channels in a row has anything good on, and only then do you think, a little disappointed: shows these days really are boring! Might as well read.
>
> Huh? Why am I so thirsty? Only now do you remember that after rearranging the fridge just now, you put that glass of sugary drink on your mom's table, and after that you forgot to pour yourself a new glass of a sugar-free drink and went straight back to the sofa. So you get up to get something to drink. After two sips, you suddenly remember that the drink you're drinking now is your favorite. The first time you went on a date with your ex-boyfriend, this was the drink he bought you…… Sigh, I wonder where he is now, and what he's doing?
>
> Your phone rings: a text message. A friend, asking what you're up to. You're too embarrassed to say you're studying; you just reply vaguely that you're sick and resting at home and don't want to go out…… You go back to the sofa again. On second thought, better change the background music; this one is too sad. So you turn around and change the CD, then settle back in and start reading. After quite a while, you suddenly realize you've just been staring into space, and you shiver. Then you instinctively glance at your watch—good heavens, an hour has gone by just like that, and you haven't even finished one page.

Isn't the scene above very familiar? I'm certainly not talking about you, but you certainly know that you have run into similar situations. Do you know why this kind of situation happens? The answer is that your brain is too active. Having an active brain is originally a good thing, but very often it can also be a bad thing—just as you saw above. Your brain is very active, and your attention is most ready to accept its commands; so, even without your realizing it, it is constantly manipulating your attention. And so you are easily swayed by your brain just like that.

You may have to struggle for a long time before you truly understand this principle: **your brain is not you; your brain is (belongs to) "your" brain.** Although you think with it, and it seems to be directing your behavior, you have to understand that you should not be subordinate to your brain; rather, **you own your brain**, and **you can control your brain**.

［图］

This is something that is hard to explain clearly with words alone, but if I give you an example or two, you'll understand right away. I don't know whether you've seen that famous film *A Beautiful Mind* ([A Beautiful Mind](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/))? The protagonist of the film, John Nash, is a very good example: he was the first person in history widely known to have "used his own mind to defeat his own mental illness." In other words, through struggle Nash learned to control his own brain and was no longer controlled by the hallucinations in his brain.

Another classic example is the famous psychologist Viktor Frankl. His parents, wife and brother all died at the hands of the Nazis, and he himself was severely tortured in a Nazi concentration camp. One day, alone and naked in his cell, he suddenly had a completely new feeling—he suddenly realized that "even in the most extremely harsh circumstances, people still possess one last freedom, and that is the freedom to choose their own attitude."

Let's put it another way: after his sudden awakening, Frankl finally understood that he could in fact control his own brain, rather than being swayed by it! So, in the hardest years, he chose a positive, upbeat attitude. He did not despair. On the contrary, he imagined in his mind how, after regaining his freedom, he would stand at the lectern and tell his students about this painful experience. With this positive, optimistic way of thinking, Frankl, although in prison, was surprisingly able to let his mind transcend the confinement of the cage and gallop freely in a world of freedom.

This is what's called being liberated by using one's mind. **No longer letting yourself be the slave of your own brain, but choosing to stand up and become the master.** I clearly remember the feeling of going cold all over when I suddenly understood this principle. Rather than "recovering what was lost," it was more like "starting over." When I was very young, I heard Lao Cui shouting, "I don't want to leave, I don't want to exist, I want to die and then start again from the beginning!" [Translator's note: 老崔 ("Old Cui") is the rock musician Cui Jian; the line is from his song 《从头再来》] Hearing it back then gave me goose bumps all over; I understood it was a kind of helplessness: no one can start again from the beginning, still less someone who doesn't believe in reincarnation. But when I suddenly realized that I could, of all things (and fundamentally should), control my own brain, I felt that, surprisingly, I could start again from the beginning without even having to die—rather magical.

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