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The Trick To Being Less Self-Conscious At Social Gatherings
More carefree. And a lot less bothered.
Are you a science person? Do scientific surveys convince you? They give me some direction when I feel shitty about feeling shitty. (It’s called a Feedback Loop from Hell, by the way — thank you for the lovely term, Mark Manson).
So, back to the problem.
A 2018 research proposes that thinking about ourselves is actually our brain’s default mode. So, basically it goes like this — the part of your brain which is activated when you’re mentally idle (you know, chilling, getting bored, drifting in thoughts) and the part of your brain that is activated when you think about yourself are actually the same part.
The human brain is wired to think about itself.
And why not?
Our brains were designed for the hunter-gatherer existence. Imagine yourself in a forest plucking berries for dinner. While you’re foraging, you need to ensure that you don’t get attacked by a tiger, bitten by a snake, or your berries don’t get stolen by enemy bands. Essentially, your brain always loops around yourself — safety and security because, you know, survival.
A corollary of the above is — where is the time to think about other people?
