I had an interesting experience the other night when I was just getting into bed which showed me how strongly we can get conditioned as humans.

I had gone jogging earlier in the day when I slipped and fell and scraped my hand. Before sleeping I applied some ointment on it to soothe it.

As I tucked myself comfortably under the covers, with my right hand sticking out at an odd angle so that the ointment would work its magic in the night and I’d wake up with a brand-new hand with none of it being smeared on my bedsheets or pillow covers.

I was seconds away from drifting away when my left eye suddenly started itching. Irritably, I reached out with my tucked left hand to scratch the itch away.

It still felt itchy, so I tried again. It felt itchy again so I applied more force, trying to scratch it away into oblivion. While I was successful in seeing stars, the itch, much like an unwanted guest, remained stubbornly persistent.

In that half-sleepy state, my muddled mind tried to make sense of what was going on.

Instinctively, I reached out with my ointment-addled right hand and rubbed my eye gently.

Immediately, the itch vanished, and I felt a sensation of relief.

I opened my eyes into the dark and wondered what was going on.

And then it hit me.

Being a right-handed person, every time I needed to scratch myself, I would use my natural hand to do so. Invariably. Through this, I had unconsciously conditioned my brain to expect relief only if I used the same hand to scratch the itch.

The same principle had applied now which made me marvel at the true power that conscious or unconscious conditioning can have in our lives. Granted, this was a very basic example, but just imagine, if we can “trick” our brains in the case of such commonplace (or even negligible) instances, what can we do if we diligently applied ourselves to a particular task to reach our goals, intentionally conditioning ourselves to overcome obstacles and focus on what truly matters?

We could create wonders in our own lives. Now that’s some food for thought!

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