Why Is Sacrifice Necessary?

In a lot of religious texts and motivational speeches, sacrifice is given the utmost importance, apart from hard work, this is another important thing to achieve our goals. But why do we need to give up on the things that make us happy, in order to attain our set goals? I stumbled upon this secret relation between the two when I was studying logic gates in electronics. 

I read at many places that sacrifice is important to achieve success, you have to sacrifice delicacies, meeting with friends, watching favorite shows on TV or netflix, you have to stop going to the cinema to watch movies and only then you’ll get enough motivation to work hard in the right direction to achieve set goals.

Let us first understand why we like to do certain things and why we hate doing other things? For example, we like to watch movies, play games, going out with friends, partying with friends, eating tasty foods; but we don’t like to go to gym and work hard, we don’t like to study and learn things, we don’t like to sit idle and meditate, we don’t like to take medicines.

That’s because since our childhood we have associated the release of dopamine with the activities that we like to do. Dopamine is a brain chemical that is released when we do tasks that makes us happy. But why does dopamine is released only during certain tasks but not in others? That’s because we have seen others enjoying doing those things than others in our life so far.

In movies we are shown that people enjoy going to long drive, people enjoy dancing, singing, partying, bullying others, commenting on others, eating and drinking tasty foods; movies never show a patient enjoying taking the medicines they take, infact movies show exactly opposite to this, when a patient in the movie takes the medicine the patient makes his or her facial expressions of dislikes, to show the audience that he is actually disliking the taste of medicine. Actors show happy and cheerful expressions when eating tasty foods and beverages that they want to sell. 

When we see others in action, the mirror neurons in our brains fire up that makes us feel as if we are ourselves doing that work, that’s the reason your mouth waters merely on seeing others eating your favorite dish; you get sad merely on seeing others crying; you start smiling merely on seeing others laughing, you get aroused merely on watching others making out on TV. This function in the human brain helps us to learn things by empathising others.

So this is the story behind why we subconsciously associate dopamine release with few activities and how our brain maps the happiness with tasks by seeing others enjoying them. But what about sacrifice? The original question is still not answered. 

During one of my career counselling session I asked what tv shows he likes to watch? He said watching cricket makes him happy. And then I asked, when did he last watch any cricket match, he said some 6-7 months ago. When I enquired about his other watching interests and what does he watch now, he said he now watches Big Boss. I realized that’s why he stopped watching cricket because he started watching bigg boss. His mind has found another show to release dopamine from, so his mind has dissociated the release of dopamine from watching cricket matches. That’s what happens with all of us. When we find something better, we lose interest in our previous best thing. 

There’s something called dopamine detox where one is asked not to do anything for one entire day, that is not using social media, not watching TV, not going out, not talking to friends, not eating anything, that is observing absolute fast. This way the mind gets very bored and notices no rise in dopamine in the last 24 hours, then the mind starts releasing dopamine from whatever activity we do next, because when you have nothing to do, the mind starts liking whatever tasks you are given to complete. It’s like you are fond of eating chicken and hate eating eggplant, but if for one entire week you are kept deprived of eating food and on 7th day you are served eggplant, you’ll start enjoying its taste.

That’s why sacrifice is important, because if we want ourselves to like studying or working, then we have to keep ourselves deprived of all other things and activities that make us happy, so that our mind starts liking whatever activity it is giving to perform. 

And once you have started extracting happiness from tasks that actually profit you in the long run, you’ll slowly upgrade and forget doing things that had instantly gratified you earlier. And that’s when you have successfully upgraded your habits and sticking to that habit, will make you achieve your goal one certain day. So sacrifice is necessary in changing habits and working hard.