Why Worry?

We think with three parts of the brain, reptile, mammal and human. So says American physician and neuroscientist Paul D. MacLean, only he uses longer words. After all he’s a neuroscientist.

The reptile is all about survival, aggression and dominance. I blame this part of the brain for throwing a dart at Alex Minshall’s face at my ninth birthday party.

Mammal thinking is more about emotion and motivation in feeding, reproduction, and parenting. This part of my brain is probably responsible for drinking Special Brew and dancing in smoke-filled night clubs in the 1990s, none-of which admittedly ended up in actual reproduction or parenting, though I’m sure the former was on my mammalian mind.

The human brain is responsible for planning, language and perception. Given that it was generally too noisy to talk much in night clubs, I guess this must have expressed itself in letters, degrees and the learning of big words.

Now Mr MacLean may have been a neuro-do-hickey, but my sister as a child came up with this genius line and wrote it in my autograph book:

“You die if you worry, you die if you don’t.

So why worry at all?”

Given that I’m trying to become less jaded, I think I have to attack the jade on two fronts. My pincer movement is thus firstly: stay away from survival mode – the reptile in me is more likely to throw darts and blow up over little things. Secondly stop thinking so much, and by thinking I mean worrying, which I attribute to being human.

So I’ve now got two books to write:

1. The ten hour work month.

2. How to be less human.

Which play nicely into the second step in my three part solution to being less jaded – to write more. Which I think is how Tim Ferriss actually achieves the four hour work week – he writes about the four hour work week.

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