Why you do what you do when you don't know why you did what you did

Our 'animal' actions and reactions are shaped by our conscious and subconscious thoughts and cultural environments by either our design or by accident.

The Pain of Feeling Like We Don't Matter

I believe that for us as humans everything stems from identity,  and the core component of that is feeling like we matter...  Anything that makes us feel like we don't matter hurts us in deep and profound ways.
The sad thing is most people's actions that make you feel like you don't matter are often a reflection on them,  not a reflection on you, we take it personally. How can you not? There was a great example in a book called 'walking on egg shells'and the example went something like this:
A bride chooses a church to get married in. A day before the wedding lightening strikes the church and it burns to the ground...  It is too late to find another venue. Naturally the Bride is very angry,  but she doesn't take it personally...  It's not like the lightening deliberately and intentionally was out to hurt the bride.

So much pain in life we take personally,  if we can try to understand pain is all around us and the people that love us rarely and truly don't want to hurt us,  but understand that they will... And when they do,  try to understand it's not about you,  it's probably more likely it's about them and their problems, pasts and mistakes.

The Cycle of Greed (rise and fall)

Greed.  Greed can be the builder and the destroyer.  Think of someone with a good idea,  works hard,  is resourceful, takes time to develop the product and idea,  finely tunes and ultimately becomes a success...  This success gives them  more money and options which is then used to build up more and then to build on top of that...  They becomes more successful than was ever planned...  Where is the peak? At some point,  they realise maybe you could make more by cutting costs,  speeding up processes,  floating the company,  bringing in outsiders to diversify and reach wider audiences... Now there's not just expectations but targets that an accountant,  a lawyer and a stock broker start to enforce,  you have a bad week...  Oh no,  profits are down,  cut something from the budget,  investigate what happened,  create safety nets but can't spend any more money...  Cut costs,  move funding from the original projects and departments to stop legal proceedings,  satisfy the spread sheets,  cut more staff,  get fewer to do more,  simple maths right? Bad reviews,  people are complaining,  customers are leaving,  loyalty is down,  skepticism is up...  Share prices fall...  Panic...  Cut more costs to keep profits up,  product suffers, quality people no longer want to work there or be associated with your brand...  Hopes of less skilled cheaper workers with expensive consultants/managements become the plan...  It turns from practice to pure theory and numbers on a page,  why is the company still failing. There are only so many excuses investors will accept,  they leave in droves,  debts are piling up,  sell and sack and ship to keep a float... It sinks with nothing left but the thoughts that inspired,  maintained and destroyed it.

Know where to start,  know where to stop. 

Pain, Punishment and Pleasure

Pavlok electric shock punishment

Crowd funding

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pavlok-the-habit-changing-device-that-shocks-you

Promo video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYvpvz_bzmI

I read an article today that really stood out.  I looked more into it and it's basically a company that wants to keep you accountable to yourself by punishing you when you don't do what you say you want to do.

Pain is iinevitable in life,  but I believe you can choose to a degree where when and how that pain happens. 

I like the idea,  there are two types of people,  those mainly driven by reward and those mainly driven by undesirable consequences...  'carrot or stick' philosophy. Both work,  it just depends on the type of person and the choices you make.

An explination I found:

First, you could dangle a carrot in front of the donkey, fooling the donkey into thinking that if he pulls the cart far enough, he’ll get to eat the carrot.

The second is to prod the donkey along the road by hitting him with a stick.

If the donkey is motivated by the ultimate reward of a carrot, the stick won’t be necessary,
but if he’s not really all that interested in carrots, then the stick will be employed.

Either way, through reward or through punishment, the cart driver gets what he wants.

Contributors Justin Taylor

Science says that pain and pleasure are in a lot of ways, intertwined,  a paradox where pain causes pleasure. 

http://m.livescience.com/27462-relief-makes-pain-feel-good.html

Some philosophers would say there is no pleasure without the contrast of pain.

I could go on as pain and pleasure is a passionate topic of mine,  but I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes. 

Haruki Murakami: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”