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Areas › Anger › Choosing your response
It is worth actually doing rather than reading about, because the evidence is yours and it is hard to argue with. Nobody chose those four things, they came out preset. If a plain circle arrives preprogrammed, it is no great leap to think that the way you answer a certain tone of voice does too.
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, 'Peace' (Quran 25:63). Character is described here in how people walk and what comes out of them when they are needled, which is exactly where the automatic things live.
الفرقان
وَعِبَادُ ٱلرَّحۡمَٰنِ ٱلَّذِينَ يَمۡشُونَ عَلَى ٱلۡأَرۡضِ هَوۡنࣰ ا وَإِذَا خَاطَبَهُمُ ٱلۡجَٰهِلُونَ قَالُواْ سَلَٰمࣰ ا
The servants of the Lord of Mercy are those who walk humbly on the earth, and who, when the foolish address them, reply, ‘Peace’
Qur’an 25:63read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a series of experiments, an established habit kept interfering with what people had planned to do, and forming an if then plan only partly cut through it, less so when the habit was strong. That is the same pull you are watching in the circles, in miniature. The experiments used everyday habits in volunteers, so they show the pull exists rather than measuring it in an argument.
Webb TL, Sheeran P, Luszczynska A. (2009). Planning to break unwanted habits: habit strength moderates implementation intention effects on behaviour change.. The British journal of social psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Seeing your own automatic behaviour somewhere harmless makes it believable somewhere costly.
Aim for the cat rather than the dog. The dog goes off the second the door knocks, while the cat waits, watches, and still moves decisively when it decides to move.
The version of you making sensible plans this afternoon is not the version standing in the kitchen at eleven at night. Plan for the other one.
The relief people describe afterwards has little to do with clever insight. It is the feeling of being back behind the wheel, which is a large change if you have been living as though other people operate you.