You Playback only what you Record

If you ask my wife, she will confirm that I sound like a broken record when it comes to recording the details of any particular situation, especially if you perceive it negatively. I strongly recommend that we take great care in recording events as objectively as possible, since they will come back to haunt you if you capture only the interpretations.

We tend to record the story surrounding the incident and not the unemotional actions that took place. The facts are boring; there is no juice in the factual details, the juice is in the story that we make up. It is the interpretation that lingers on much after the event has occurred.

All I can say is that the playback of the situation later in time will be the same as how we recorded the incident and not what actually happened. We often seem to remember the negative emotions that surround an event and tend to forget the positive. Not capturing the exact actions that took place even in a positive situation can prevent you from repeating the success again in the future. You will playback only the story, not the details necessary to duplicate your success.

Whenever my wife and I have an argument, I am careful how to record the details, not how I felt during the exchange. Recently, I was reminded by three different people who told me, “People don’t remember what you said, they only remember how you made them feel.”

If this is true, then it’s ultra important to replay your recording soon after the emotions subside to consciously rewind, edit and overwrite the details of the event, so that it will serve you well in the future. A negative recording of an exchange especially in a personal relationship never serves the relationship in a positive way. It often comes back to sour a future situation, when technically it never happened that way and was purely an interpretation in the heat of the moment.

Remember that our Ego will want to feel right and will help to record an event in such a manner to make us feel that way.

To find a simple way to get to know the Ego and separate your Self from it, please visit my web site at www.krishnapendyala.com or my book Beyond the PIG and the APE: Realizing SUCCESS and true HAPPINESS.

For harmony in your life and our world,

Krishna

Up Next: Money and Happiness and the Fear of Poverty

Discussion

Joe Stafura October 15, 2012

Thanks for the thoughts Krishna, but the model of memory as a “recording” to be played back is not in agreement with current understanding of memory.

Cognitive neuroscientists have blown up this old idea that we can “play back” something like a recorder by showing that we remember things mostly in non linear chunks colored by our Affect, or mood, at the time of the experience. What we do is reconstruct our memories to match our desires, perspective is malleable and different people will not remember the same situation the same way.

The hope at a better set of coping mechanism based on this new understanding can be helpful in areas where our own self assessment leads us astray.

Have a great week and stay positive…

Reply
1. Krishna Pendyala October 15, 2012
  
  Thank you Joe your thoughtful comments. My intent was not to describe memory as a recorder and I agree with your statement that we do reconstruct our memories to match our desires. What I wanted to say is that we tend to remember an event with our interpretation of what happened and not what actually happened.
  
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