True Religion Flar Jeans The Power of Beliefs

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"We cannot choose whether or not to believe; but we can choose what to believe." Unknown
Our personal power is dependent on the actions we do or do not take. And before we do or do not take an action we consult a belief to see if what we are contemplating doing will create mental peace or mental conflict. If our mind says “okay”, we may proceed with a reasonable expectation that we will be rewarded with pleasurable feelings; if our mind says “uh-uh” we can likely count on an emotional scolding.
A belief is confidence in the truth of a person or thing. That person or thing does not need to be true for us to believe in it and cause us to act accordingly. For example, on Halloween evening of 1938 millions of Americans tuned their radios to Orson Wells’ broadcast of “The War of the Worlds”. In it, an alien army from Mars invades earth and sets about conquering the planet with incinerating heat rays. The program was broadcast as a series of news bulletins and there were no commercials which added to the authentic nature of the program. It is estimated that 6 million people heard the broadcast and that 1.2 million of them were presented with enough convincing evidence that they were genuinely frightened. It was, of course, a hoax.
Beliefs are little warehouses of data we’ve collected on specific topics. Before we take an action related to that topic we check our inventory to evaluate how we’re going to feel after the action is completed. This assumes that we’ve taken that action before and have established what attitude or feeling will result; as such,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], beliefs serve as shortcuts that prevent us from having to intellectualize every action we take every time we take it. When a friend calls and asks me to come over and play music I don’t have to weigh the pros and cons of loading up my gear and driving across town to join him. I just unlock my “play music with friends” warehouse and there on the shelves are all the reasons why I may or may not want to do it.
As I write this I am witnessing an historic time in this country’s political history. In two months the US will have elected either its first black president or its first female vice president. These are new paradigms and millions of Americans are stocking new warehouses with “references”, or bits of data that will serve to construct their beliefs about the candidates. When assembling a belief system about each of the candidates I might include my beliefs about their party’s stated values, the individual’s platform and past performance, my opinion of how they dress, the way they speak and of course, how I feel about their gender and race. It’s important to remember that nothing I evaluate comes with a pre-assigned meaning; how I feel about Barak Obama’s attire is strictly my own opinion. But my opinions and beliefs about each of the candidates, though they may be different than someone else’s, create my reality. “That candidate is an inexperienced bigot whose party exists only to serve the needs of special interest groups who pad the party leader’s pockets at the expense of the wealthy homeless!” My belief may be ludicrous but to me it’s real and I will defend it with vigor until I have reason to believe otherwise.
There is no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny; at least that’s what I believe now. But there was a time when I was equally certain that these beings did in fact exist. And I had a lot of compelling evidence, references if you will, to support my beliefs. My parents, brothers,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], aunts and uncles, grandparents and friends all told me they were real; where is a 5-year-old boy going to find more credible sources tha
The shelves are stocked with the yeses and no’s,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], whys and why-not’s, inputs and evaluations that establish our feelings and dictate our actions toward everything we encounter. And the more inventory on the shelves the stronger the belief. But sometimes we encounter a person or thing we’ve not met before and have to go through the “belief establishment” process; we need to stock the shelves.