I truly believe that there is some sort of programming hard-wired into every living thing on the planet. You can observe this by watching any mother in the wild care for her young. Even domestic pets show traits that just seem to be there.

Without the brain capacity of a human, these animals have likely not thought of the best way to do something, yet they know. They follow a built-in set of instructions.

Even tiny insects seem to have a pre-written piece of code that enables them to accomplish tasks necessary for their survival. What is encoded into a colony of bees that allows them to build a perfectly symmetrical hive and establish an orderly society where each has a job to do for the greater good? Its not like they drew up plans to build the hive, yet it turns out flawless every time.

Since I dont know the answers, I’ll stop here. However, the point I am making is that if every other living thing has a hard-wired set of instructions, then what excludes humans from having similar programming?

We like to think of ourselves as special, but we are, after all, animals – albeit, more advanced animals. We think of ourselves as being entirely independent, able to make all our own decisions and have 100% control over our lives, but how can that be if we are all animals at the end of the day?

Having accepted this, I also had to accept the fact that we are all different. We are individual, and although some of our hard-wired programming might be generic for our species, each of us still has uniqueness in our own specific code.

Can we change code that has been passed down from one generation to the next – code that is hard-wired into our personality? Doubtful – this is what gives each of us our own personality. That is why in the field of self-improvement, results will vary enormously.

In my case, I thought that being shy might have been part of that non-programmable code. If this were true, then there was no way that I would ever be transformed from a total introvert, to a total extravert. It was simply, not who I was – and never would be.

Additionally, if nature programmed me with this non-removable code, then one could assume that it was essential for my survival. How is making me painfully shy, essential?

That leads me to believe that shyness could be a natural protection system. Don’t ask me how or why. For all I know, it could have been a remnant from something we needed thousands of years ago. In my case, I may have been given an extra dose.

Hmmm¦

Having said all that, I still believe that the majority of our programming is re-writable. I think we have the ability to make huge changes in our belief system and how we view the world and most importantly, how we view ourselves.