如何成为自己的权威

This is the first article I wrote for my first web-site, back in 2005, and still one of my favorites. In my late teens and early twenties, I spent a few years idealistically exploring New Age methods and communities. I met some very nice, smart and responsible people, but also many who were ready to believe just about everything that sounded nice, or were simply full of… manure. Now that I have quite a bit more experience and a much broader perspective, sending this message out seems even more important on a global level. I’m privately kinda proud that since first publishing this article, I only needed to change a few words in it.

过我们自己的生活

在我看来，人类生活中最宝贵的课程之一，就是学会信任自己，并且 listen to your inner voice, rather than anybody else’s. By uncritically accepting the beliefs and opinions of other people, we renounce our own responsibility and power, to the extent that we cannot even call our successes our own. You can probably remember an example from your own life, when you put a lot of trust in the ideas and opinions of certain other people, only to realize one day, whether in an easier or more difficult way, that they didn’t have all the answers and that their truth doesn’t necessarily have to be yours. This is a very important lesson and I believe that everybody needs such an experience, often more than once.

即使是你最尊敬的权威，也不一定能给出正确的答案。世界上没有人能够知道一切，即使我们认为他们是开明的。即使他们能做到，也总会有这样的问题 是否存在绝对真理 applicable to any situation. If such truths exist, then I believe them to be small in number. Maybe you have experienced a situation when you felt an inner urge to do something that wasn’t quite attuned to your beliefs, only to realize after some time that this action created much more benefit for both you and other people than if you had stuck firmly to your ideas. Life is endlessly diverse; people, relationships and circumstances are unique and our inner voice can access a much more powerful source of information than our rational mind.

遗憾的是，大多数 宗教和精神方法 require the observance of many arbitrary rules, sometimes very detailed ones, in every aspect of human life; this doesn’t allow much space for listening to your inner voice and personal truth. I believe that while seeking security and trying to build self-esteem, through following such rules, we emotionally try to 取悦精神权威，就像我们试图取悦父母一样（但没有成功 在童年时期。如果这需要压抑我们健康的冲动和情感，我们迟早会失败。

人们为什么要讨好当局？

Not even the most caring parents are always able to fulfill their child’s needs. Some parents do not have enough love and respect for their child as an independent human being, while others are too overwhelmed by work and other duties to be able to provide for the child’s emotional needs. Hence, the child soon learns that love is given “part-time” and conditionally and starts trying to earn it by 精益求精 or, if possible, better than others. In adulthood, blind following of other people’s rules is a subtle result of this need.

此外，如果父母总是以令人泄气的方式纠正他们，很多孩子就会学会不相信自己内心的声音和自己的决定。长大成人后，他们可能会继续寻求他人的建议和指导，而不是接受父母的建议和指导。 失误风险. This creates a more or less subtle dependency on external authority. For this to occur, another aspect of the problem must exist – that of the person who places himself in a position of authority to be able to wield power over others.

许多人倾向于相信权威，因为他们在童年时就被教育要这样做。看来，我们不仅有情感上的，还有 进化需要跟随我们的父母在进化的数百万年中，这种需求是生存的保障。在情感上，对孩子来说，无法信任父母也是一件非常可怕的事情。从与父母相处的经验中，许多人学会了 信口开河. If something is written in a book or a newspaper, many people will automatically accept it without question. While some people who have a great need for power try to present their ideas as absolute truths, others can easily be swayed just by somebody’s self-confident approach.

识别操纵

造成最大伤害的往往是那些 潜伏者. You can often find yourself in a situation where everything you are told sounds reasonable and correct and it’s difficult to find a counter-argument, yet you still feel that something is wrong or missing. My suggestion in such situations is to take a moment to really listen to that subtle feeling in your body, to try to put it into words. Information acquired this way usually will ‘disarm’ the person who is trying to manipulate you better than any argument that you come up with rationally.

我们应该 把怀疑作为一种有益和友好的情感. Without it, it would be easy to get carried away by any idea and we would be much more vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. Doubt motivates us to question and differentiate between what are sometimes very similar ideas and information. It’s quite normal for scientists, who by definition should have firm proof for their theories, to have very different and conflicting ideas; old theories are thrown away and new ones are ‘proven’… and how much easier it is to create theories if we substantiate them only with proof created within our own minds.

Listen to that “gut feeling” whenever you read a book or talk to someone. Still, be aware that a feeling of resistance can be healthy or unhealthy. 健康抵抗力 当你审视自己的感受时，你就能为自己的抵触和分歧找到理由；不健康的感受通常是非理性的，往往更加压抑，即使我们意识到我们读到或听到的一切都是可以接受的、不受操纵的，我们也能感受到它。

不健康的抵抗力 来自压抑的 逆反心理 抵制权威及其要求：例如，那些在大脑还没有自然形成无私品质之前就被迫表现出这种品质的孩子，很容易对任何鼓励他们无私的行为产生抵触情绪。如果你注意到了这种抵触情绪，那么就探索一下是哪些词语和成语引发了这种情绪。健康的抵制和不健康的抵制之间的区别可能非常微妙，有时可能是 两者可同时出现. Still, it’s possible to learn to recognize them through practice and familiarizing yourself with your emotional reactions.

开动脑筋

Don’t take anything for granted. Check the information you are given, notice the words and idioms the other person is using. Try to 想一想为什么有些说法可能不完整或有误导性. For example, if someone shows you the result of a research study, ask yourself what could have influenced that research to make it insufficiently objective and reliable (don’t forget the possibility of the research being paid for by interested parties, as this appears to be a very common practice lately).

It is possible to sound very intelligent even if what we say doesn’t really make sense. Some people who are skillful with words, are able to easily create different combinations of words and make them sound meaningful, even wise. I have met some such people, and so did probably you, too. Just for practice, try reading some ‘highly intellectual’ books, and then explore within your body which words sound to you as carrying a certain depth and which sound like hollow intellectualizing. 

操纵人们的方法之一就是从未经证实和不可靠的言论中得出结论。许多人会被结论的表面逻辑所蒙蔽，而不会注意到 事实的可靠性 from which they were deduced. Even if the person is not lying consciously – how are we to know that the facts they have are correct? Many people will give you 好心办坏事.

既然你自己也不完美，那么同样重要的是 检查自己的行为但是，由于自我检查是我们其他许多文章的主题，我们现在不重点讨论这个问题。

操纵器 往往试图通过你的 积极的理想和愿望, using big abstract words such as love, light, truth, spirituality, God… This often covers up a lack of sincere, sensible arguments. 
(A true quote: ‘You must let your Higher Self show you I’m right!’ This is an example of quite an obvious, non-subtle manipulation – really skilful manipulators would be much less direct.)

曾经有人给过我一个很好的建议： 如果有人用抽象的大词说话，请看看他们想从你这里得到什么！ 有些人可能只是想得到你的认可或钦佩，而有些人则可能想以更具体的方式利用你。即使是对你的个人选择和信仰缺乏尊重，也足以成为你谨慎行事的理由，即使你觉得对方说的可能有道理。

In an average human communication, actually, it’s very rare to hear something that we can accept as a truth without any reservation. Talking from one’s own limitations and beliefs, creating conclusions on the basis of a small number of examples, selectively adjusting ideas or facts to one’s own beliefs, or to the needs of the situation, embellishing a story for one’s own benefit (or just for effect), accepting ideas only because they sound nice or help build one’s ego… 现实被扭曲的方式无穷无尽，即使是无意识的、无意的。

Keep this in mind while talking to people you trust and who you know do not wish to manipulate you. And regardless of how much you appreciate somebody’s intelligence, experience, wisdom, or even spiritual authority, always keep in mind that even that person could make a mistake at any moment. Not for the purpose of criticizing that person – it’s completely unrealistic to expect anybody to be perfect – but rather in order to stay with your own truth and live your own life, rather than somebody else’s.

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