You Are What You Surround Yourself With
I know it’s many “you” in the title, it’s confusing 😅
Have you ever heard the phrase: “you are what you eat”
Based on a similar thought process, I ask myself. Do you actually who you are today as the result of your surroundings? Is it “you are what you are based on what you surround yourself with”?
The notion started when I was reading a book. In the book, it is mentioned that our brain tends to keep information that is more relevant to us based on what environment we currently live in. For example: If you haven’t played basketball for a long period of time, let’s say 3 months. In the 4th month when you decide to play again, sometimes it is hard to shoot the ball in for the first time. It’s like you “forget” how to shoot properly. Even though you practiced basketball since you were little.
In the book, it is said that’s because our brain is tuning itself. It’s adjusting to what’s relevant based on the information and experiences we receive daily. It makes a cache¹ that only holds more important information, and stores unnecessary information in the back of the mind. It’s basically saying: “put more useful information in the storefront, while the unnecessary things locked up in the storage”. That’s the reason why sometimes you forgot how to do something if you haven’t done it for a long period of time.
This is fascinating to me. Based on that idea, I come up with a hypothesis: You can hack yourself
We know that our brain is holding pieces of information that are more relevant based on our surroundings. That means we can hack ourselves by changing our surroundings. If you want to be an entrepreneur, go find other entrepreneurs and make friends with them. If you want to be religious, go be active in your religious community. If you want to be rich, go hang out with rich people (but pay attention to your own money spending LOL 💸).
That way, your brain will adjust itself based on your surroundings. Later on, you think like them and you act like them. It will change your behavior. You successfully become one with your environments.
We used to hear the phrase: “surround yourself with positive people if you want to be positive”. I guess I can willingly accept the argument now knowing the science behind it.
