Tension Between Intentions and Reality

Everywhere, people believe they’ll accomplish things, make commitments to themselves and others, but often they fail. They plan to read 50 pages a day or complete tasks, only to fall short. 

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https://youtube.com/shorts/THa3OR4l4pc?si=3lGkUOcMpc1uhq97

The human brain has multiple control centers and hierarchies. What we think is just one small part of equation, while others that carry out actions operate autonomously or beyond our awareness. 

These centers developed at different stages in evolution. The brain regions responsible for awareness and conscious control came into existance very late. The older, more primal areas—responsible for instinctual behaviors, habits, and autonomic functions—existed long before. Our conscious mind is still learning, it still fails to grasp its illusion of control, that this body isn’t entirely ‘ours,’ and that many things which remain completely out of our awareness enable life. We go to doctor because we need diagnosis, we cant know ourselves what is happening in our body. 

Disconnect between what we think we want to do and what we actually do. The conscious brain,  powerful in planning and reasoning, has not fully grasped its own limitations—it often holds the illusion of total control. But in reality, life is sustained and shaped by a multiple of systems, many of which function outside our awareness. It is this inability of our conscious intentions to know and dictate the deeper, more automatic systems that results in failure to meet goals, almost all the time.

Conscious mind, despite its sense of sole existing authority,  is like a new manager in a well-established engineering office and believing it runs the entire operation, believing he is everything the company is. The conscious mind often doesn’t realize that much of the body's functioning and decision-making is managed by the older systems, which operate independently, which none of us can influence as per our wishes. Mastery of life lies there, in this game. Can someone influence when and at what rate their heart beats? 

Serious point is that these automatic systems aren't just primitive reflexes—they include complex processes like emotion regulation, habit formation, and social behavior, all of which can override conscious thought and often make all the difference between what we want and what we do. Our emotional brain, for example, can guide actions based on past experiences and subconscious or unconscious drives, our good intentions become meaningless.

What we think is often very different from our results or actions, but it significantly influences what we do. Each small victory reinforces our conscious control, gradually recalibrating the balance of power between thought and action. Conscious thought can influence habits and vice versa, but only with extremely hard work and awareness. Without aligning these systems, even the best of the intentions plans will mean nothing. 

Rather than relying solely on willpower or conscious decision-making, we need to work to on habit-building, mindfulness, sometimes forcing the body to do what we want by scary or cunning tricks. Recognizing that "thinking" is not the same as "doing" is crucial and that different systems must be engaged if some result has to come out. That is maya and its solution explained technically. 

Religion involves habits which are tools to control different centers of our brain.