Stop the Absurdity!

The absurdity of clinging to self-defeating patterns can be seen by thinking about various real-world examples. Consider the following:

» watching the same movie or the same movie scene over and over

» watching reruns of a television show, or the same episode, over and over while missing out on the variety of other programming available

» reading the same book over and over to the exclusion of all other books

» reading the first chapter of a book over and over while ignoring the rest of the book

» reading one sentence or one paragraph over and over when there are so many more sentences and paragraphs to read

» buying a music CD of your favorite singer or band and only listening to one hit song while never giving any of the other tracks a chance

» a scratched CD that gets "stuck" on one part of a song

» trying to compete in a bicycle race by riding on a stationary bike, expending a lot of strenuous effort while making no progress

» an aspiring bodybuilder who lifts the same amount of weight, never moving up to heavier weights, while hoping to get bigger and bigger

» a restaurant that serves only one dish

» a church choir that only sings one hymn or only one verse of a hymn over and over

» a pastor who preaches the same sermon during every church service when there is so much more that the congregation needs to hear

» going to the same vacation spot year after year

» eating the same meal for dinner, night after night
       
While some of the aforementioned examples might seem ridiculous, well that's the point. The purpose of the list is to illustrate the absurdity of allowing ourselves to get caught up in confining patterns of behavior and actions which fail to get us what we want.