Episodes & Interviews Blog - JAMIE MEYER ENTERPRISES

Chapter Thirteen | Free One Million Minds: The Purpose of Progress: Evaluating True Advancement

12/31/2024

Duration | 8 minutes 44 seconds
Guest: Dr. Symeon Rodger

Synopsis

In this chapter, Jamie Meyer and Dr. Symeon Rodger discuss the concept of progress and why, despite living in an increasingly prosperous world, many people still experience discontent and inner conflict. Dr. Rodger suggests that even though we live in a safer, freer world, the dissonance people feel points to a deeper misalignment between our understanding of the universe and how we are living. He proposes that instead of viewing this internal friction as something negative, we should treat it as feedback that can guide us to realignment. Dr. Rodger introduces the idea of adopting a mindset where we expect good things to happen, regardless of external circumstances. This shift towards relentless optimism, while seemingly absurd, can profoundly reduce stress, improve health, and foster a sense of flow with life. Through this practice, individuals can break free from the distractions of a hyper-stimulated society, allowing for greater mental clarity and emotional openness. The chapter challenges conventional thinking about progress, suggesting that true advancement lies not in external achievements but in an internal shift towards a more open and positive perspective on life.

Dialogue Summary

Jamie Meyer:
If the world is a better place, why do we need any more development than we currently have? This whole conversation has been about moving from isolated development and superficial development to embodied development and broadening understanding and perspectives. If we’re already better, safer, stronger, and freer, why would we adopt any other form of development beyond what we already have?

Dr. Symeon Rodger:
I could say probably at least two reasons I can think of. One reason is that we’re miserable. Okay, just back up a little bit. The world is better, safer, and freer than it’s ever been, albeit not perfect, and it’s facing its own challenges at the present time. Despite that, the fact is, we’re miserable in this better society. What does this tell us? It should probably tell us at least one thing. Going back to the idea of a theoretical manual for living human life, which doesn’t exist, if we had that manual and we were able to compare how we are living to how that manual says we should live, we would realize we’re off. The fact that we’re off is proven by the fact that we’re experiencing symptoms.

If we’re experiencing considerable friction in our lives—often emotional or internal friction—then something’s not quite right. What could it be? When we look deeper, we realize there’s a divergence between our understanding of the universe and how we relate to the universe around us. There’s a difference between our understanding of reality and how we’re living it on the one hand, versus how the universe actually is. If we were really in the flow—let’s go back to the flow concept—if we were truly in the flow, we wouldn’t experience this dissonance.

The fact that we’re experiencing dissonance is a symptom. Instead of labeling that dissonance as bad or evil and trying to get rid of it with, I don’t know, drugs or whatever, we can look at it as feedback. If that’s feedback, then how do we actually get into the flow of reality? How do we do this?

Because, you know, looking at something like Taoism, for example, the whole idea of the Tao, the Way—this whole notion of the Way—is that the Way is the essence of everything. The Way is how things are. The Way is known not by intellectual understanding but by getting into the flow of it. And that’s the message every ancient tradition will tell you. You can’t actually know absolute reality intellectually, but you can experience it.

And you can only do that by following certain paths that will hopefully get you into that flow. If you do, it will reduce that dissonance, and you’ll experience something completely new and different. The question is, how do we do that?

And I think a lot of it has to do with, if people want it, honestly, Jamie, in my opinion, if people wanted to experience a lot less dissonance, I do have a recommendation that seems ridiculously simple. It seems silly, and it seems completely absurd. And, you know, I don’t think anyone should believe what I’m about to tell them. They should simply try it out.

Jamie Meyer:
So definitely try this at home.

Dr. Symeon Rodger:
Yeah, so it’s really simple. The problem is, we often expect that bad things will happen, and we try to protect ourselves. What if we reversed that? What if we adopted the point of view that the universe is on our side and is going to deliver benefit?

What if we adopted that perspective wholesale? What if, every moment of every day, we expected good things? What if we became ridiculous, irrepressible, and uncontainable optimists? What if we just expected the best all the time? What if we became complete idiots? Because that’s how you’ll look to other people, by the way. What if you ignored all the evidence to the contrary?

I submit that if you try that, you will feel 3,000% better. And in a crazy, mysterious way, this will solve almost all of life’s problems. It will start solving your health problems—some of them, at least. You’ll be a lot less stressed and a lot less tense internally. Your metabolism will change. Your blood pressure will probably go down. It certainly won’t go up.

In addition to that, one of the really big problems—if you look at ancient systems of personal development—they will say the big problem is the “monkey mind.” The big problem is that your mental attention is scattered everywhere. It’s going in a thousand directions at once all day long. And of course, if they said that 2,000 years ago, that was nothing like what we have today. We’ve created a hyper-stimulated society.

We’ve created a society where we run on stimulation to such an extent that many people are totally uncomfortable without it. They can’t just sit and be.
Well, if you were to simply practice this open expectation—just be open and expect good things to happen—this has the effect of pinning your mental attention, holding it in one place. It solves that problem right away, and it opens you up. You no longer feel closed off because when you’re protecting yourself, you’re always closed off. Instead of being mentally and emotionally closed, you become open and available to what is.

You will stop labeling things as good or bad. Not necessarily in a moral sense, but we live by labels, and it becomes ridiculous. We feel the need to label everything good or bad, and we measure everything. Oh, we love to measure.

Credits Roll

References

Cognitive Dissonance is a psychological theory proposed by Leon Festinger, referring to the discomfort one feels when holding two conflicting beliefs or when actions contradict beliefs. This often leads individuals to change their beliefs or behaviours to reduce inconsistency.