#11 (1/3) The Gateway to Understanding Your Brain
Why You Must Accept That Your Brain is Self-Serving
***Author’s Note: It’s been 19 months since I published my first two main articles (#1 and #2). Not only has my philosophy evolved into a more cohesive form in that time, necessitating that I update the subject matter of those articles for the book, many new readers have joined us as well. Over the next three articles, I’m therefore going to revisit those initial topics that sparked the entire philosophy through which I write. I hope they bring clarity to your life that you may not have otherwise had.***
Your brain cares about one thing and one thing only—you. Its sole purpose is to keep you alive, which includes maximizing your well-being through a delicate balance of physical health, mental health, and safety. In other words, it’s a fundamental, biological truth that your brain is self-serving. Humans are sophisticated animals after all.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that all humans are fundamentally self-serving. Your brain influences your actions through emotions, thoughts, and feelings, but it does not decide them. You do. And I’m sure you can point to at least one instance where you’ve decided to act for reasons outside of yourself.
What the fact of your self-serving brain does mean, however, is that your brain is always trying to help you. Just like a good friend’s advice, it could be wrong sometimes despite the good intentions. It could be misguided. But your brain is never intentionally leading you down the wrong path. It is never lying to you or trying to harm you. It is not an enemy.
Recognizing and accepting this truth about your brain allows you to see it for what it is—the most important tool you will have access to in your entire life. This truth serves as a baseline from which you can better understand your mental landscape. It allows you to build a relationship with your brain as you would a best friend or loved one. And that relationship? It’s life-changing.
Unfortunately, society has spent decades teaching us to conflate ourselves with our brains. We’ve been taught that our thoughts and feelings are a direct reflection of who we are as people—that if we're struggling mentally, it says something fundamental about our worth. That anxiety you feel? Must be a personal failing. That depression? You're just not trying hard enough.
We've also been conditioned to believe that self-serving behavior automatically makes us selfish, and that being selfish makes us bad people. If you and your brain are one and the same, and you reject self-serving behavior, well, then how could you ever accept a self-serving brain? How could you ever see your brain for what it is?
Society’s messaging has created an invisible barrier (a locked gateway) between you and understanding your brain, making you treat it like an enemy when it doesn’t perform how you want it to, rather than recognizing it as a sophisticated tool trying to help you navigate life. Once the barrier becomes visible, however, you can unlock the gates, climb over it, or better yet, you can blow it up.
That’s when you’re free to truly learn about yourself and how your brain is programmed. Free from judgment. Free from shame. Concerned only with how you can help your brain help you.
The next few articles will unpack all the above. First, in this article, let’s start with the biological truth that your brain is self-serving. Here’s why that’s true.
Your Brain’s Chemical Language
You can think of your brain as a living computer that produces chemicals and feeds on those same chemicals. You experience these chemicals as thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Sometimes the chemicals are produced reactively to your experiences. Other times your brain uses the chemicals as tools to influence your actions in a sort of carrot and stick approach.
To elaborate, the chemicals associated with pleasant feelings and positive well-being, we’ll call “carrot” chemicals (think dopamine). Your brain produces these “carrot” chemicals when you experience something that makes you feel pleasant, or when your brain entices you to have that experience again.
For example, your brain might produce a small dose of desirable “carrot” chemicals (a reminder of the dopamine you got from looking at your phone) and encourage you to act or not by offering the full dose for you to feel in return (you could feel that again if you do).
The chemicals associated with unpleasant feelings and diminished well-being, we’ll call “stick” chemicals (think cortisol). Your brain produces these “stick” chemicals when you experience something that makes you feel unpleasant, or when your brain warns you against a similar experience in the future.
For example, your brain can discourage you from acting or not by producing a small dose of undesirable “stick” chemicals (anxiety) as a forewarning that you may feel a full dose if you proceed or fail to proceed (crushing feeling of rejection).
Your brain prefers a nice balance between “carrot” and “stick” chemicals. It’s what keeps your brain healthy and strong. If your brain starts drowning in “stick” chemicals, it’ll become sick and weak (think depression). That doesn’t make “stick” chemicals toxic or “bad” though.
If your brain produces too little “stick” chemicals, it’ll become weak in a different sense in that it’ll lack resiliency against the “stick” chemicals it does produce (think a struggle-free life that is introduced to adversity). Or, if the “stick” chemicals are directed to a storage tank right after being produced, it’s only a matter of time before the built-up pressure causes an explosion (think toxic positivity and avoiding uncomfortable emotions).
It's the balance that matters. The emotions you feel from “carrot” chemicals or “stick” chemicals are information, one and the same, that your brain is communicating because it is programmed to believe it will help you. Feeling joy is your brain saying you're aligned with something that benefits your well-being. Feeling anxious is your brain saying that you care about something uncertain in the future going your way. They’re just different styles of help.
Your Brain Can Only Help You
Now, here’s an important piece. Your brain cannot produce chemicals in another person’s body. Nor can your brain feed on chemicals produced by another person’s brain. The two brains are not connected.
That means when another person feels appreciation for something you did, it does nothing for your brain. That person’s brain may feed on “carrot” chemicals because they felt appreciation, but yours doesn’t. Imagine doing something that you had no idea would benefit someone and them feeling appreciation for whoever did it. Your actions benefited someone, but your brain has no idea.
If you intend to help the person before the action, then you might experience a pleasant emotion during the action or after its completion. That’s because of your intention, not because the person was helped. Or you might experience a pleasant emotion after that person demonstrates their appreciation, because you feel appreciated, not because the person was helped or feels appreciation.
What I’m getting at is that your brain produces chemicals based only on the outcome, or possible outcome, to you. To your brain, to your body. Its concern for another person is limited to the context of how you are affected by what happens to that person.
The evidence is in the simple truth that you feel stronger emotions at the thought of a loved one getting hurt than at the thought of a stranger getting hurt, despite them both being equal human beings. A loved one getting hurt feels scarier because of how much more they mean to you and how much more your life will be affected by their injury (which your brain also associates with their death). It’s just reality.
Reality that your brain is always trying to help you. Always. Every emotion and feeling that you experience is your brain providing you with information that it has been programmed to believe will help you navigate your world. See also my article on why helping others feels pleasant.
I’m certain you can recall times, however, where it surely doesn’t seem to you like your brain was helping. And you’re not wrong. Despite its pure intentions to assist, sometimes the result of your brain’s efforts keeps you stuck or heading in an unwanted direction. That’s because there’s a couple ways that your brain can be misguided in its attempt to help.
……look out for the next article to continue the conversation. If you haven’t already, it’ll go straight to your inbox if you subscribe! :)
Take Care of Yourself,
Alex
Do Selfish Well is a reader-supported publication. Thank you for reading. If you would like to help support the growth of Do Selfish Well and its message to reach more people, you can:
Tap the “like” button if this article made you think
Tap the “restack” button or “share” the article on social media if you think this article might make others think
Leave a comment if you are open to sharing what the article made you think about
Head to the archives if you want to learn more
Subscribe or follow if you want to stay in the loop for the next article and new developments
A Brilliant write-up!