Are you being Cultivated by your Environment?

Since young, we are exposed to cultures.  Every year there will be a number of celebrations and everybody’s favourite celebration is Birthday!  As a Chinese, my favourite is Chinese New Year as I can get red packets containing money and it lasts for 15 days, more money.

Apart from the traditional celebrations we were told and passed down from generation to generation, there are other things that are passed down in family cultures that change with time and environment.

What am I trying to get to?  I’m trying to highlight, the mindset of our parents or grandparents that is being passed down to us. The reason is simple because they believe that they have more knowledge and are in a better position than you.  Therefore, they are trying to protect your interest by teaching or telling you what seems to be workable/best for you.  Therefore, if they have a limiting mindset, chances are you will have a limiting mindset.  I would like to share with you a story which I had read some time ago.

It’s a fictional story where it talks about this community of people, all they do is to grow up, consummate and when they hit an age of 30, they will go to this cliff to jump down to move on to another life.  There was this smart guy who is waiting for his turn to jump off the cliff, suddenly he stopped and ask the guy behind why do we need to jump down when we are so happy with our lives?  The guy replied, “This is what we are told since young that when we hit the age of 30, we will jump this cliff, to go to another world, everybody does that, it is normal!”  Upon agreeing, the guy leaps off the cliff together.

I can hear you say, this is madness.  However, if you have watched a couple of movies that talks about the ancient tribal cultures like Apocalypse by Mel Gibson or Year One by Harold Ramis you will know what I mean. 

If you haven’t, let me narrate a scene in Year One, where they are not suppose to eat a forbidden fruit or they will be chased out of the village. Zed (Jack Black) asked Oh (Michael Cera), why can’t we need to forbidden fruit of knowledge, Oh just replied, I don’t know because the shaman said so.  In another scene, Oh kept telling Zed that there is nothing beyond this cliff and they are the only village on this earth. 

However, when Zed and Oh were chased by some wild boar, they fell off the cliff and found more people and new technology that they have never seen before. 

Very similar to the olden China where they refuse to open their doors to modernisation and think that they have the best technology.

This is a promotional effort for my new ebook, What Is Stopping You Now?

Jimm Yim