Hijacked

It has taken me a while to realize that the way I react to things happening in my life is not necessarily the way that I want to act. Given a calm environment, I know that my reason works competently enough that I could make a reasonable decision. However, add a little stress, a little hunger, a little sleep-loss and/or a whole blender-full of hormones and, suddenly, my reason becomes overwhelmed. Bad decisions aren't necessarily seen as good; they just aren't seen as decisions at all. In fact, I react as if I had no choice but to react as I do. And that is completely untrue. I don't have to react in any way, because I am a rational (mostly) human being who has the capability of making good decisions even if I am stressed or hungry or tired. So why don't I?

To put it simply, my brain has been hijacked...by my past decisions. The brain is very impressionable, and it assumes once you've done something several times that that is how you would always like to do it. It lays down the imprint, creates a map and starts traveling the same road until the ruts become trenches, then canyons. When this comes to things like riding a bike, tying your shoes or being able to drive to work without having to consciously think about what you're doing, this ability to maintain nueropathways is quite useful. When it comes to reacting badly to a slow driver, or stressing over work, or really any number of situations where I let my emotions take over...it's not so good.

The good news is that my mind (being a separate entity that controls the actual physical brain in a way that still mystifies scientists) is capable of retraining my brain so that the decisions that I make impulsively are good rather than...not so good. In order to do this, however, I have to be able to stop, realize that my brain is getting ready to plummet down that canyon road, and pull it over to another path before that happens. Sometimes, this feels very much like wrestling the wheel away from hijackers (emotional hijackers, who have some really good arguments and some really poor impulse control), and I think how much easier it would be just to let things run toward gravity. Easier, yes. Better, no.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Galatians ends the list of the fruit of the spirit with self-control. After all, if I am constantly working at being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle and faithful, then I will have self-control. I will forge new paths to become roads that will turn into highways themselves. And I will be much more difficult to hijack.