Lizard Brain

I woke up at around nine o’ clock today morning. I thought of making a cup of milk tea then refrained myself. Spending a few dull moments in front of television, I stood up and went to the kitchen. I pulled myself and finally made a cup of lemon tea. Following that, I thought of washing my clothes, as I do not have any clean stuff to wear on Monday morning for office. But, I am yet struggling with the idea of starting my washing machine. I had bought a book on Risk Management two weeks ago, but procrastination is overcoming my keenness to run through the book.  Many a times it happens, you want to do something, then you change your mind, you do something else or sandbag the idea in between. Sometimes it also happens, you take immediate decisions (especially defensive, keep yourself cosy and to avoid any scuffle) without much thought process going behind. Later you even find your assessments acceptable however barely had you used your conscious level to take those decisions.

It is quite tricky to find out any explanation behind the irrational behavior of our mind. An American author of business books, Seth Godin, describes it the Lizard Brain at work, which is mostly concerned with the survival. Lizard hates change, achievement, and risk. Lizard Brain’s only reaction to everything is resistance (do not call it fear). Would you want to speak in public, would you want to buy something, would you want to go for a vacation, lizard brain is always going to put jitters on your way. Seth Godin rightly says that the resistance grows in strength, as we get closer to the truth of what we really want. The voice of resistance will always ring bells somewhere in the back of our mind signalling us to pull back, go slow and compromise.

We all have a pinch of Lizard traits at the top of our spine, inside the skull. On lighter side, we have had it since we were Lizards as evolutionists argue that we have evolved from lizards (around 300 million years ago when we were Tetrapodes). All I can say is that Lizard characteristics are never going to obtain victory for us in any battle of life. We cannot shoot that lizard or punch it to keep it quiet, but we can suspend the judgement coming from Lizard inside our body in order to overcome lizard traits. Now I am going to wash my clothes suspending the judgement presented by the lizard inside me.