The Grasshopper offered this up this morning: “Your most conditioned reaction is your largest prejudice.”

It seems that most of our prejudices are involuntary, until we notice. Even after noticing, we may begin to justify our conditioned reaction. That’s usually when we look the most foolish.

Have you ever watched anyone defend their prejudice? The only people not cringing are like minded morons.

Like most of our beliefs, we got most of our prejudices by accident. They were handed down to us through conditioning. The interesting thing to notice is that they aren’t really our prejudices, just some hand-me-downs we got comfortable wearing before we knew what a hand-me-down was.

Stop for a moment and think about what prejudice you own that your mother or father may have had. Now, perhaps, you can appreciate what kept the Hatfields and McCoys going at it for generations.

You were conditioned into a way of thinking and acting that may not be serving you well today. It could be attitudes about other races or cultures, religions, political parties, sexual preferences, the role of money in life, what other people should or shouldn’t be doing. The list of conditioned prejudices is endless.

The conditioning you got the most is your largest prejudice. What you may not realize is that it prejudices you from progress. Prejudices have the unique ability to keep you stuck where you are.

The first key to outgrowing a prejudice is to notice it in you. The second step is to stop justifying it. This takes continuous application – like home teeth whitening. It takes work on your part.

Here’s an everyday example of the ill effects of conditioning: Every time you post your prejudicial point of view online, under the guise of “the truth,” you have made another argument for your limitations, keeping you stuck and angry. if you like that feeling, keep doing what you’re doing.

If you’re tired of that angry feeling and tired of being held in place, notice that it’s your conditioning that’s arguing for your limitations keeping you stuck and angry.

If you just got angry about this post and went into justification mode about your prejudice, you need attention the most – your attention. Notice that you are the source of your own anger and your own stuckness.

If you ever get that recognition, you are at the threshold of change where prejudice starts to come unglued and you are on your way to no longer being stuck and angry.

All the best,

John