We are offensively simple patterns, for better or worse

Our life is made up of patterns—a repeating reality of our own making.

Let me be clear: we don’t have identities. We have patterns.

These carry far more weight than abstract concepts like “identity.”

My identity is a marketing manager: I show up to work 5x a week - pattern.

I am happy because I get to spend Saturdays & Sundays with my partner - pattern.

But if these patterns change, my reality and identity do, too. To try and change your identity is overwhelming. But patterns can be isolated. They can be changed, discarded, and created. 

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It’s easy to see other people’s patterns: a friend who always goes for toxic guys. Or who finds a new project every two weeks, just to discard it later. 

But it’s hard to see our patterns. That we create our patterns is invisible to us. Easier to blame them on external forces.

I used to think I was a judgemental person. When I saw someone with a designer handbag, I’d think: how could she be so frivolous & spend $X amount on that? I catch myself: I am not judgemental. Seeing X (Gucci bag) triggers reaction Y (judge.) A judgemental pattern. 

But I can change it: X triggers Y, but I take it back. Other people’s spending is no concern of mine. Soon, X triggers but Y is blank. I fill it with good for her. She’s happy. Soon, X stops triggering. Pattern & identity are changed.

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Patterns are felt most deeply when we lose them. A breakup, for example:

You co-create patterns assuming they will always exist. Breakfast together. Nights in on the couch. Wonderful, intangible moments shared between you that escape words. Being with someone is to willingly distort your reality.

Years go into reinforcing these patterns. They become your reality: waking up next to your person a thousand days in a row will do that to you. 

And then in an instant - usually traumatically - these long-standing patterns are destroyed. Reality - and our ‘identity’ - are changed against our will. 

Neural pathways in your brain that were traversed every day must now stand dormant. Forgotten. Ruins echoing for only you to hear. 

New patterns must be forged. This is always a painful process. The forgetting of cherished patterns is long and haunting. 

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I’ve made patterns sound rather like a neurological jail cell. But I don’t think it’s anything like that. There is empowerment hidden in our patterns: 

1. We can create good patterns

2. We can discard negative ones at will

This is not to say patterns are the source of all happiness and misery in our lives. Some things are beyond our control and you may be at a stage of your life where change is not yet possible.

But when the opportunity does arise, it’s easier to change patterns than your identity:

Breakups are hard. So, committed to bettering yourself, you pick up yoga. You find it painful to repeat this pattern the first few times. You are merely filling time; to think as little as possible. 

But eventually, it gets easier: you sweat and curse less. A new pattern emerges. Courage to make more blossoms in the corner of your mind.

The old, vacant pathways lose their power over you. That pain is not you. You are not your sadness - it was just a pattern.

Misery is an impossible foe to topple when we call it by its name. But tether it to a pattern and you can shed it like a second skin. Pattern by pattern, we can create a new identity. By changing and discarding old patterns, by creating new positive patterns: we can make our reality just a tiny bit brighter.

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