Life is about doing life.
Relationships are about doing relationships.
And love is about doing love.
Category: Life Quotes
Being a Human Being is Doing Being Human
You may have heard the old saying that sometimes we become human doings rather than human beings.
But perhaps we miss something in that distinction. Being is also doing. Being human is something we do—moment by moment, choice by choice—as we create a life of meaning and purpose.
The human doing the old saying warns us about is the life spent chasing one achievement after another, as though a life could be measured by everything we manage to accomplish.
But living well is a different kind of doing. A worthwhile life is built much like a house: not all at once, but one brick at a time. So is a worthwhile relationship. We build it in the small things we do today, and then again tomorrow—the conversation we choose to have, the kindness we offer, the moment we stay when it would be easier to turn away.
There is no final brick called a meaningful life. The building is the living. Being human is this continuing process of choosing, moment by moment, what we want each moment to stand for. Each life is built from all those moments you showed up for.
A Natural Science of Behavior
The science of behavior offers us a different way of understanding our life choices, big or small. Human behavior can be better understood through the contexts that surround it rather than through some mysterious inner entity or parts within us that divide people into the good and the bad, the extolled and the condemned.
Walden and Walden Two: Understanding the Difference Between Thoreau and Skinner’s Utopia
Thoreau sought a better life by stepping away from conventional society.
Skinner imagined building a better society so people wouldn’t have to step away from it.
Sometimes the problem is not simply the person,
but the context in which the person is trying to live.
Naming vs. Understanding Psychological Problems
“In behavioral therapy, we focus on how the problem works, not what it’s called.”
A label can describe a pattern—anxious, impulsive, avoidant, perfectionistic. But therapy needs to go further. We ask what keeps the pattern going: What happens before it? What follows it? What rules are you living by? And does the behavior still work in the context you’re in today?
Understanding how a problem works gives us somewhere to intervene.
Traits and Contexts
Traits may describe patterns in how people behave,
but they do not necessarily explain why they behave as they do.
A trait is a summary of behavior, not its cause.
To understand behavior, we must look beyond the label
and into the context that produces it.
Thoreau and Skinner on Creating a Better World
Thoreau tried to build a better life by leaving society.
Skinner imagined building a better society so people wouldn’t have to leave it.
Sometimes the problem is not simply the person,
but the context in which the person is trying to live.
The Hidden Costs of Greater Understanding
One of the hidden costs of developing a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world we create is grieving the unnecessary suffering within it. Once you see how much pain is sustained by unquestioned assumptions rather than inevitability, it’s difficult not to wonder how much suffering could have been averted had we been more willing to question the assumptions that shape our relationships, our institutions, and the way we understand and treat one another.
Are Achievements a Reflection of a Person’s Worth?
Achievement tells us something about a person’s performance under particular conditions.
It does not tell us the value of the person.
What Makes the Strongest Relationships?
The strongest relationships are built not on communication skills alone,
but on flexible minds.
To learn more about what it means to have a flexible mind—and how it can strengthen your relationships—visit the Love, Contextually book page.
Click here to know more about Nathan Chua’s books written under the pen name, Starfly Chua.