Did you ever build a house for Habitat for Humanity growing up? It usually involved a group of people - maybe it was your classmates, or your basketball team, or your Boy Scout troop. You'd drive to the future home site of someone in need, get an orientation from the project leader, and start building. If you were one of the early people on the project, you'd be there for one of the first stages - the framing of the house. There'd be two-by-fours, nails, nail guns, measuring tape, and more. Piece by piece the wood would come together, and eventually you'd have the frame of the house in front of you. There's two things that happen after that framework is installed:
It shapes and dictates how the rest of the home is built.
It is hidden from view once the insulation, drywall, and rest of the house is built over it.
This house is no different than the lens that we individually see the world through each and every day. The world as we see it is entirely shaped and dictated by the framework that we have built it upon. And this framework is an accumulation of the beliefs that we have built over time regarding, people, the planet, life, death, and the meaningful or meaningless fabric that holds it all together.
A simple example is religion. Whether you were raised Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheist, or anything in-between, this framework has shaped your view on the world. It has shaped the value you place on life and people. It has shaped the meaning you attach to certain objects and symbols. It has shaped the reason for your days above ground. And not only that... it also shapes how you process every bit of information you receive or knowledge you gain from this moment forward. If you learn something new, you find a way to fit it into your existing belief system, thus not just shaping your past beliefs, but also shaping any beliefs you come to in the future.
Framework. Shapes. Everything.
The trouble with framework is that much like the house, we can't see it, and we largely forget it's there after everything else has been built on top of it. Underneath all of us are thousands of two-by-fours, providing the framework for our beliefs about ourselves and our lives, placed and nailed one by one by our parents, our teachers, our peers, and eventually ourselves.
Do you have something in your life that you want to change?
Do you have a belief about yourself that is negative or hateful?
Do you have bitter thoughts about the world and the people in it?
Do you have something, anything, in your life that is eating you alive everyday?
Before you buy some self-help book on a Barnes & Noble shelf, before you spend time and money at some therapist's office, before you spend one more day wondering "Where did I go wrong?", ask yourself:
What is the framework that is shaping my beliefs right now?