𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐠𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮

Recently I heard this real-life story of a person named Onada from World War 2.

On December 26, 1944, Second Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda of the Japanese Imperial Army was deployed to the small island of Lubang in the Philippines.

His orders were to slow the United States’ progress as much as possible, to stand and

𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫.

In February 1945, the Americans arrived at Lubang and took the island with overwhelming

force.

Within days, most of the Japanese soldiers had either surrendered or been killed, but

Onoda and three of his men managed to hide in the jungle.

From there, they began a guerrilla warfare campaign against the U.S. forces and the local

population, attacking supply lines, shooting at stray soldiers, and interfering with the

American forces in any way that they could.

In August 1945 Japan surrendered, and world war 2 ended.

However, thousands of Japanese soldiers were still scattered among the Pacific isles, and most, like Onoda, were hiding in the jungle, unaware that the war was over.

The U.S. military, in conjunction with the Japanese government, dropped thousands of

leaflets throughout the Pacific region, announcing that the war was over and it was time for everyone to go home.

Onoda and his men, like many others, found and read these leaflets, but unlike most of

the others, Onoda decided that they were fake, a trap set by the American forces to get the

guerrilla fighters to show themselves.

Onoda burned the leaflets, and he and his men stayed hidden and continued to fight.

By 1950, the leaflets had stopped.

The local population attempted to return to their normal lives of farming.

Yet there were Onoda and his men, still shooting at the farmers and burning

their crops.

In 1972 a guy named Suzuki traveled to Lubang and then shouted Onada’s name literally and he told that the Emperor was worried about him.

Suzuki asked Onoda why he had stayed and continued to fight.

Onoda said it was simple: he had been given the order to “never surrender,” so he

Stayed.

For nearly 25 years he had simply been following an order.

So if you notice that Onada was following the order to never surrender and in this process even harmed the locals for more than 25 years. He did not even realize that he was doing a self-goal.

𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐎𝐧𝐚𝐝𝐚’𝐬 𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲

Just like Onada in my teenage I had few nights when I struggled when there was a power cut or when the pillow of mine was changed.

I associated the wrong command that a pillow change is supposed to be a bad night. My brain always kept looking for reasons to avoid change of pillows

In 2019 this problems increased because of the personal and professional turmoil I was going through . I was watching a TED talk and the presenter told that Tech Generation is cutting down on sleep. Cutting down on sleep is a big No when it comes to longevity.

I could clearly see that I was cutting down on sleep because of the pillow issue or the power cut issue or due to many other factors.

This caused a lot of self-goals like Anxiety, Indigestion, Loss of Motivation, etc.

Things changd when I meditated regularly I understood that my command was wrong and then came out from doing a self-goal.

I hope this story made you realize that just by blindly following a command you end up self-sabotaging and you end up damaging your body.

So in short, your brain could be working against you if you have the wrong command.