Think One Step Deeper

It puzzles me sometimes that many of us oversimplify the world in our minds.

I would challenge you to consider that when you think you have something figured out, to continue to search one step deeper.

Often when we think we understand something, we really don’t.

Much of our thinking goes: A causes B, and I want B, so A is good. This may be true, but what if B causes C, which is a terrible outcome? Many of us don’t think this deeply, but we should.

This seems obvious when laid out in abstract form, but this is a common error in our thinking, where we did not think deeply enough. Of course, we cannot always predict what will happen so easily, but at least take the time to consider what the likely outcomes will be. Then, what will the outcomes of those outcomes be?

For example, a political science professor at Purdue taught me that it is quite easy to think superficially and fail to see the bigger picture.

He once discussed that, of course, we all want to be good and help to feed the starving, especially in different nations that are not able to provide this assistance to their own citizens. Yet, I was left in disbelief when he explained a rational outcome of feeding them, at least on a mass scale. As we feed them and nourish them, they tend to reproduce more, and then because there are probably not good systems in place for them to get jobs, we end up with even more poor and starving people than we began with. Eventually, at this pace, we cannot continue to feed the starving.

By feeding the starving, we end up creating more starving people eventually.

I do not claim to have all the solutions – I am not someone who would say we should not feed the starving. Clearly, it is very human to want to help the people who need it. But we have to admit it is quite odd to have goals where even if we accomplish them as we hoped, we will cause new problems that refute the original goal.

Human thinking is often shortsighted, where we tend to have one goal in mind. Yet, we fail to understand that by accomplishing that goal in the way we wanted, we will create new circumstances that contradict our original goals.

Here are some examples that could apply to you:

• If you pay someone to help you with simple favors, they may happily do favors for you when you pay for them. Yet, the one time you ask for a favor and cannot pay for it, they may refuse to help. They have come to view their role as performing a job rather than as performing favors.

• If you always pursue what makes you feel ecstatic, you may find your life highly enjoyable and pleasurable. But when something happens that does not go your way, you may not manage it and fall into a depression or anxious state.

• If you comment on a child’s weight frequently, you may get him to lose weight as you would like. But eventually, the child may become obsessive about his weight and develop an eating disorder.

• If you study hard just with the motivation of getting good grades, you may perform very well in your classes. Yet, you may find that you do not have a solid understanding of the material in time. You only memorized exactly what was supposed to be on the exams, but you never truly understood it.

• If you dislike a particular bug that often invades your house, you may hire exterminators to kill it. This makes you happy because the bugs are gone. Yet you may find in years that the exterminators killed some exotic and rare bugs critical to the ecosystem. The lives of multiple species may be threatened because many residents such as yourself exterminated these bugs.

• If you tell yourself positive lies to yourself to motivate yourself to do better, this may help you to succeed and give you a motivational boost in the short run. But in the long run, you may find that you are good at making people think you are highly skilled, yet in reality, you struggle to accomplish basic tasks in your field.

Train yourself to think at least one step deeper than you normally would. Do not settle for the type of thinking that goes: If A leads to B, and B is good, then A is good. The reality may be much much more complicated.

Ask yourself: Does A cause other problems? Does B cause other problems? Is there some C variable we haven’t even considered, which would cause other problems? Do some of these problems refute the original goal we were striving for?

The Evolution of Thoughts

Sometimes I wonder if I have ever had a novel or original thought in my life.

Think for a moment – Have you ever had a truly novel thought?

There are many ways to define originality, but in this case, I mean a thought which has never been formed by anyone in all of human history and even pre-history (e.g., before written records existed).

There is no way to know for sure. I suppose if you work on developing modern technology, which would not have existed in the past, then it may be more likely that you will have a new thought that no one else has ever had.

However, in my experience, we all tend to hold similar thoughts to the people around us – our thoughts are defined by our location, family, culture, religion, and peer groups. Whatever they tend to think – you probably share many of those thoughts.

Sometimes it bothers me that I cannot be certain that I have ever had an original thought in all of my life. I consider myself an original thinker, but time and again, any thought that I believed to be original, I ended up realizing that someone else had had the same one before me. And often, their thoughts were better developed.

I sometimes read philosophy, psychology, or sociology books where I feel that I have already had some of the same thoughts they are discussing. But if I dig deep enough, sometimes into Eastern philosophy, I end up realizing that some people have thought through my own “original ideas” (or those which I used to think were original), and they have thought through them more deeply, elaborated them more fully, and created a vocabulary that could properly express the ideas.

And so this is a pattern, that if I search hard enough, I end up finding books or sources that discuss my ideas that I thought were original, in a deeper way than I ever would have.

And this makes me question: Have I ever had an original thought in all of my life?

Of course, as I am a writer, the fact that I have created sentences no one else has ever written makes them original. But this is superficial. In the end, the sentences express thoughts. To me, the real question is whether any of those thoughts are truly original. And then, to make the task even more challenging, if there are any original thoughts, are they meaningful?

In the movie Garden State, Natalie Portman’s character wants to know that she has done something that no one else has ever done. So, every day she produces some strange combination of bodily movements so that she can know she has done something no one else ever has.

If someone committed themselves, surely they could string together the most bizarre thoughts. But what is the point if this isn’t useful in some way?

The point of originality isn’t just to do something new, but hopefully to do something great.

Another way to define originality is to say that something is original if it is new for you. If a child discovers how to do long division on his own, without any formal teaching, then this is quite original for that child. It is truly an accomplishment. However, of course, this is not original when we consider all of humanity.

Often, when we discuss new ideas, thoughts, or ways of doing things, they are rarely new at all. Often, we are applying something that has been done in the past to our current situation. It appears to be new and original, but it is just an extension of what was already there in many ways.

What seems to be new and original is more like a natural evolution. Perhaps even, it was inevitable. I actually think of Darwin’s theory of evolution. In animals, some of the unnecessary features gradually become lost in time. Those features that are critical to survival end up becoming instincts in the new generations. These processes take generations upon generations to become visible, but it is part of evolution.

With thoughts, perhaps something similar happens. The thoughts evolve based on prior thoughts. The useful thoughts tend to be more common. They may aid with survival, accomplishing goals, building social bonds, or solving complex problems. I used to have thoughts that were not so useful or that were inefficient – in time, my thinking has improved. As in evolution, the parts of my thinking that are not helpful for any useful purpose are being dropped off. And the useful parts are staying or adapting and being modified. The thinking is evolving.

I sometimes laugh on the inside when someone is praised as being some great and original thinker. Usually, these people do deserve credit, but I believe now that most of us do not realize that to a single human being, 99.99% of all knowledge out there is original.

For 99.99% of what is known to humans as a collective, I probably am not aware of it, even as an educated and well-read individual. There are so many topics that I know little or practically nothing about. If someone takes a moment to discuss such topics with me, everything will seem novel, original, and brilliant.

My point is that sometimes the original and novel thinker may not be so novel after all. He may have access to all kinds of knowledge that is not frequently known.

The question I have for you is this: If someone reads books no one else is reading, watches movies no one else is watching, travels to places rarely traveled to, and associates with people who think differently, will this person eventually become an original thinker, or have the appearance of being an original thinker? Even if he absorbs and repeats what he experiences, these will be original thoughts to most people because they will be new to most people.

But when we consider all of humanity, these will not be original thoughts, of course.

How can we have original ideas, to begin with? How can I come up with something fully new? Everything I come up with will be in the context of what is known, what I have seen and observed, my goals, my culture, the way I was taught to think, and so on.

Or is original thinking just a natural evolution? Perhaps some original ideas may even be like mutations, where they happen unintentionally, but they can still be useful somehow.

Do you think most original thinkers are truly original, or do they just spend more time with sources that are unfamiliar to most people?

As another explanation, perhaps some people are credited with original thoughts, yet really they were quite logical and analytical, and their thoughts went so deep that most of us could not keep up with them. This means their thought processes were not original, but somehow the outcome of their thinking was original, as they discovered something new.

It seems to me that true originality is quite difficult to find - what do you think?

A Universe of Thoughts

As I continue with I. C. Robledo’s Thoughts, writing a post every day, I have been left feeling that I have a Universe of Thoughts inside me that are not fully known even to myself.

And this has made me realize that we probably all have a Universe of Thoughts within us, and it seems much of that is left unexplored.

Perhaps much of our Thoughts are left dormant, like seeds that never germinated and never amounted to much.

What I mean by a Universe of Thoughts is that just as you have a rich life of behaviors and feelings and desires, we tend to forget that there is also a whole universe of thinking happening in our minds.

In writing out my Thoughts, sometimes I feel that I am arriving at new ways of thinking, processing, and figuring things out. This is usually how writing our thoughts works.

Yet, much of the time, I feel that these Thoughts were always within me somewhere, just waiting to be expressed. And of course, my thoughts are not fully my own, as they result from all I have learned, my experiences, and my interactions with people.

Today, I want you to consider what Universe of Thoughts you hold inside you that perhaps you are not even aware of.

Surely, part of what I am getting at here is what is referred to as the subconscious mind. There are parts of the mind we are aware of, which we are conscious of, and parts which we do not fully know the subconscious side.

When I write these posts, I have been entering into a mode of flow, where the words flow out of me as if I am tapping into a Stream, as if these were thoughts that were always in me, simply dormant and waiting to be expressed.

I’m not sure that I express my thoughts, record them, or even “think” them so much as I am capturing them. Imagine a radio signal - the radio isn’t thinking and speaking to you. It is just capturing the message.

Rather than looking outward at the world around me, I am exploring inward. I am turning the focal lens of my mind onto itself. I am seeking to explore the boundary between my subconscious and conscious mind. The parts that were perhaps once subconscious, I aim to get into words and express them for your benefit.

Clearly, we all have hidden sides of our minds that we are not fully aware of. Yet if we search enough, we can actually explore these subconscious parts of ourselves and make them conscious.

This type of exercise, where you capture the uncapturable and express the inexpressible, is similar to recalling a forgotten memory. Have you ever done that? Have you ever “forgotten” or not thought about something in many, many years, then suddenly it came to you? You took something hidden in a dark cloud inside your mind, and you brought it to light.

If you have done something like this, you know it is possible to shine a light on hidden parts of the mind. Just because it is difficult to do at first does not mean it cannot be done.

When you explore your mind and yourself enough, you can eventually intertwine your conscious, subconscious, and full mind together, start to flow like a stream, and then capture that Stream, which is your Universe of Thoughts.

The Universe of Thoughts is just your conscious and subconscious minds put together. Once you see these Thoughts, your next challenge will be to understand and articulate what you see there. And what you will see are your full conscious and subconscious experiences and all that you have ever seen, known, experienced, and felt.

This is the Whole self that is you, not the fragmented parts that we normally think up. We categorize and label ourselves to try to make sense of ourselves. But there is a part of us that is Whole and cannot be categorized. It is the True You.

Isn’t it interesting that we can see an image of the actual Universe while knowing very little about what happens in it? Similarly, you can see an image of your brain (which seems to house your mind), yet you can know very little about what is happening there. Sometimes seeing visually isn’t enough. You have to learn to “see” with your mind in new ways that were never taught. With this new kind of seeing, you may learn about your own mind.

What is inside your Universe of Thoughts? There are Thoughts of Truth, Wisdom, Understanding, Intuition, and Feeling, and Love.

I believe we all have volumes full worth of knowledge and books, or videos, or any media stored in our minds. It is all there, usually uncaptured, untapped.

How can we actually explore our Universe of Thoughts?

This is not a skill that is ever really taught. It is intuitive for us to explore the world around us. We learn to read, watch videos, perform any actions we need to, think about what is in front of us, or even concepts discussed in a book.

But how good are we at exploring inward and seeing the thoughts, feelings, and experiences happening internally? Because these are not easily captured in a book or video or some measurable way, we forget about this experience inside. We may even take it for granted or feel that it is not especially important. Keep in mind that reading or learning about someone else’s experience is not the same as fully understanding your own unique human experience.

There is great difficulty articulating your inner experience, as we may not even have the words to capture the experience fully. You may find yourself inventing words or concepts to properly articulate your inner mind and life.

At the end of the day, our Universe of Thoughts is just scratching the surface. It is just one single part of our Personal Universe of Being that we have access to (which would include Thoughts, Feelings, Behaviors, Experiences, Desires, Beliefs, Values, etc.).

Consider this: If you don’t have access to your own mind, life, thoughts, experiences, and beliefs in a fully conscious fashion, then what does all the rest matter?

If we do not know and understand ourselves, how well can we possibly understand something outside of us?

Everything expressed in today’s post was something that was forever inside my mind and had not been expressed. All of this flowed from my inner mind (or a part that is intermixed with conscious and subconscious thinking), so I know that it is not fiction, that it is coming from my True Source of Being.

If you want to access your Universe of Thoughts, start capturing (or recording). You can do this in a journal, audio, video, or even just by talking them out with a friend or family member. Don’t allow yourself to stay stuck on the surface of things. If you find yourself having conversations that run the same course as they always do, then you have not gone deep enough.

When you start tapping into your Thoughts more deeply, you may explore uncomfortable ideas or memories, or you may realize that you had stifled parts of yourself to appease someone or society. You may wonder about a lot of assumptions you made in your life. You may begin questioning more.

For example, why is it that every time I hear this particular word, I get angry? Or I get sad? Why would a single word have that effect on me? If you haven’t had such thoughts, you may relate to having a particular negative or even positive reaction to someone you only just met - why would that be?

What is it about You (e.g., your thoughts, beliefs, desires, experiences, values, etc.), that makes You this way?

But rather than just accessing memories, or ideas, or regrets, you may eventually tap into your own way of seeing the universe. You may start to understand yourself and why you think a certain way, why you believe a certain thing, why certain things are meaningful to you and others are not. You may explore deeper and deeper until you can eventually read yourself as a book.

Eventually, you will have volumes of your own Thoughts and Being inside your mind. They may also be in physical form as if reading a book right in front of you because you will be tapping directly into the Stream or Universe of Thoughts.

You will start to see that there is a Universe inside of you that you can explore at will. You will move beyond the surface, and dive into the Deep.

Eventually, you can break down your own mind, and when you deconstruct it, you can reconstruct it to be whatever you want or need it to be. Discover the rules that make your mind what it is, and you will be able to see that things could be different than what they are.

None of this is easy, and I don’t know how to teach you to get There other than to write this post that has been written. First, it was written into my mind. Then I tapped into it. Then I wrote it here for you to see.

I am not the Source – I just managed to capture the Thought.

What I Learned in the 5th Grade

I sometimes think back to the 5th grade because it was a tough year for me, but I learned some great life lessons that year. My teacher, Mr. Strombeck, taught me so much, and most of what I learned wasn’t even a part of the curriculum. He had a reputation for being one of the hardest, most strict teachers in the school, yet I’m glad I was in his class.

I Learned to Read (and Think)

This teacher gave us reading assignments that somehow seemed to leap beyond anything I had ever been required to read in the past. They were short stories that it seemed like an adult or young adult may read. He told us to read them on our own time and then answer some comprehension questions that I thought were quite difficult. These stories were not typical kid stories. It was literature. Complex themes and ideas were floating around, and it was not always explained so directly within the story. You had to figure it out on your own or come to your own interpretation of what was going on.

I am convinced now that he wanted to get us thinking. He didn’t want to explain the story to us so that we could learn his explanation. Mr. Strombeck wanted us to figure it out and make sense of the story for ourselves – that is what reading is truly about.

This was the first time I learned to ask myself questions as I read. Why did this character behave this way? What were they trying to accomplish? Why did they get emotional or upset at a certain point? When or where are they, and why does it matter?

I remember that the first stories he assigned were incomprehensible to me. I felt lost. But I kept reading and trying to understand, and at the end of the year, my reading skills had vastly improved. In the 6th grade (the following year), I read the highest-level books in the school library, which were 8th-grade level. I’m sure this was because my 5th-grade teacher had actually challenged me to truly read and to truly think.

My Actions Have Consequences

Surely, children younger than the 5th grade learn that their actions have consequences. Every child knows that if they behave badly enough, they will get punished or at least have some privilege or reward taken away. But I learned this lesson in a deeper way here.

One of my friends needed an eraser, and he was only maybe 15 feet away. I didn’t want to get up from my desk without permission, so I gently tossed an eraser to him, and he caught it.

“That’s 5 days detention right there,” the teacher said sternly, looking at me.

He took a moment to write me up and hand me the form. I was quite upset, as I thought it was obvious that I had not violently thrown anything or tried to hurt anyone. But I knew if I tried to argue the point, it would just make things worse.

To this day, I’m not entirely sure if the punishment of 5 days detention was really warranted. It seems extreme for the gentle toss of an eraser.

Yet as a child, the lesson hit home – Be careful with what you choose to do. Think through your choices. Your actions have consequences.

In hindsight, I think this fifth grade teacher was trying to actually prepare us for life, and not just for the sixth grade.

I sense that the message he was giving me and to the class is that even if this punishment seems harsh, in real life, people often commit actions that appear to be harmless and yet which can result in horrible consequences. Also, in real life, sometimes minor crimes result in harsh sentences, and some criminals get off for free. Things are not always fair.

“It’s not easy, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.”

I was horrible at paying attention in class, and so I believe I was struggling in history class at one point, and my Mom had talked to Mr. Strombeck. He told my Mom that I should go to his desk the next day to discuss my options.

The next day arrived, and I was very introverted, so I was nervous about going up to him. Most of the day went by, and I never went to his desk. I was going to keep waiting and probably never go up to him. Finally, in the afternoon, Mr. Strombeck called me to his desk.

He asked me if my Mom had told me to come to his desk and talk to him, and I said “Yes.”

Then he said something like this: “I know it can be difficult to come up to an adult, but you’re going to have to learn to do this. It’s not easy, but sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. You are the one who would like to do better in history, so you are the one who needs to come to me about it. Next time you have something on your mind, come straight to me.”

Then he gave me a few extra credit options to help improve my grades.

At the time, I think I struggled to communicate with people, especially adults. In general, I had started to develop some anxiety around socializing. Fifth grade was also the first time I was expected to give presentations in front of the class. All I can recall was having this overwhelming sense of dread when I needed to present like this world-ending disaster was happening. A girl in my class got so nervous that she would shake visibly and cry during her presentations. I probably felt like her on the inside.

The understanding from my teacher that it was difficult for me to communicate and that I was intimidated to speak with adults somehow helped me make it through the year.

Ultimately, now as an adult, I agree with him that some things will be quite difficult, but you have to do them.

Through doing those difficult things over and over, somehow it seems to result in personal growth, well-being, character, grit, and skill.

How to Use the Internet

That year (1995), I was selected to be in a group of four students who would learn extra computer skills. I don’t remember much about what we did. The group only met once per week for about an hour. At that time, I remember working on something called Netscape (a common web browser at that time).

In those days, there were less than 40 million internet users worldwide, and apparently, I was one of them. Today, there are nearly 5 billion regular internet users. There is a good chance you and everyone you know has internet access, but the world wasn’t always this way. And as I’m starting to feel older than I actually am somehow, I will remind you that I am 35 years old now.

We couldn’t have known back then that this internet thing was really going to take off. As kids, it was just an interesting way to pass the time and like a toy to play with.

Now we know the internet is much more powerful than we thought – we are all connected through it and able to share and receive as much information as we can handle.

Final Thoughts

I learned a lot in the 5th grade. I learned to read and think that my actions have consequences, that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to, and how to use the internet.

By the way, the only things I remember learning were not actually in the course curriculum. Isn’t that interesting?

What did you learn in the 5th grade?

Or do you have a teacher who stands out to you and who helped you learn some valuable life lessons?

Think Differently to Become a Difference Maker

"Diffferent Thinking:

1. Thinking which is unlike in style, type, form, process, quality, amount or nature; dissimilar.

2. Differing in thinking from all others, unusual.

3. Thinking which reverses basic assumptions and accepted logic or reasoning.

4. Weird thinking."

- Rolf Smith (“The 7 Levels of Change”)

When I have conversations, people often tell me that I think differently (or sometimes strangely). Or they may tell me that I used a different thought process than they expected.

This isn’t always a good thing. Sometimes they end up showing me that I used a longwinded and convoluted path to arrive at a conclusion that could have been gotten to much more easily. This has happened to me when I spoke with highly analytical or logical people.

However, this ability to think differently is one that I have always valued about myself. I have some confidence in feeling that I can probably come up with unexpected options for solving problems. If I ever get stuck in a situation, I can probably find a way out of it by thinking differently. I have never had a sense that a problem was unsolvable - although I have wondered if people were ready to implement the necessary solutions.

Sometimes my different thoughts are just ones that I haven’t had the time to properly think through or test, or perhaps they are not easily testable.

For example, a recent thought I had was that in our dreams, we are everyone in the dream because it is all happening in our minds. This is not a new thought for me – as one of my teachers in high school told me this.

Then I started thinking about it more deeply….

In our dreams, we are not only everyone in the dream. We are also everything in the dream. If there is a piece of furniture, that is me because my mind created it.

In our dreams, we feel as if we have one vantage point or one perceived self, yet in reality, we are everyone and everything in the dream. Again, if we literally created all of it in our own minds, then it is all a part of us.

Is it possible that we are everyone and everything somehow in real life, and we just have this illusion of being stuck in one vantage point – as it is in dreams?

Is it possible that we are in someone else’s dream, and so when we dream at night, it is a dream within Someone’s larger dream?

And then…. I was thinking, is it possible that the people in our dreams have their own dreams?

If we are the dreamers of someone else’s dream world, then could we also be creating dreamers of their own dream world?

Who is to say?

Different thinking doesn’t really need a definition – it is just a different way of seeing and thinking than what other people use. I’m not sure it is always creative – but it certainly can lead to creative thinking. With creative thinking, the thoughts should be novel and useful. Different thinking just involves novelty or a different quality about it and doesn’t necessarily need to be useful.

I’m sure we all have our own different ways of thinking, but today, I wonder what has contributed to different thinking in my own life. Let’s consider this more deeply.

Not Paying Enough Attention in School

Starting in 5th grade, but possibly beginning before this, I can recall being horrible at paying attention in school. Any time we got to topics such as math or history, my mind would refuse to focus. It became meaningless chatter in the background. My mind would wander endlessly. I would wonder about my classmates’ lives, if we were ever going to use any of what we learned, and I would actually worry if I would end up failing a class because I couldn’t pay attention. (Luckily, I never did.)

I believe now that a part of schooling is really designed to teach us to be normal thinkers. When the teacher says apple, you are supposed to think fruit. You aren’t supposed to wonder about how far you could throw one if you really tried. In school, you learn that when you are shown something, you immediately think about something else. And so, most of us end up with these associations in our minds.

Perhaps I am missing some of those associations because I didn’t pay enough attention, and somehow that forced me to think through things in my own way, making me a different thinker.

Having Family or Friends with a Different Culture

My family is Mexican and Panamanian, and I grew up in the US, so I grew up with some of the Latin culture, yet I went to school with kids from a wide spectrum of backgrounds. In high school, my closest friends were from a variety of different backgrounds – African American, White American, Laotian, Vietnamese, and Hungarian. Frankly, we didn’t sit around and have deep conversations about our cultural heritage, as I was still a teenager. Still, having some exposure to different backgrounds and ways of thinking from an early age helped me eventually become a different thinker.

Having Conversations with People Who Think Differently

In my experience, it’s not easy to find different thinkers. The ones I have met tend to know how to think conventionally in order to function in society. It’s as if they have their own inner mind, which is different thinking, yet in society in their normal life, they know how to think conventionally in order to work with people.

Growing up, the first different thinker I knew was my cousin Salvador – he owns a frame shop, and he is an artist. In my high school and college years, we would often have hours-long conversations that I could only describe as different. The mode of thought that he used was not like anyone else I had ever spoken with. Often, as we talked on and on for hours into the night, I would reach a point of exhaustion where I couldn’t think anymore. Then he would pull the conversation in a new direction, asking a question I had never considered, in a way that seemed to push the limits of everything I knew to be true.

To think differently, meeting different thinkers is key. Without having known Salvador (who just happened to be a cousin I grew up with), my ability to think differently would have been stifled.

Being Comfortable with Different Ways of Thinking

I was very introverted growing up, and so I spent a lot of time in my own thoughts. This was good and bad. It’s bad because we shouldn’t be too isolated from others – it’s important to share ideas with others to learn and grow.

However, being introverted ended up being a good thing for me because when I had different thoughts, I wasn’t always concerned about what anyone else would think of them. I just spent time thinking it through on my own, and I didn’t need anyone else’s approval.

I actually wasn’t sure what others would think of my thoughts, and I didn’t feel the need to share them. My thoughts were just a part of my own world when I was younger. If I had felt the need to share them and have people agree with me, then I could not have properly developed into a different thinker.

Being Willing to Consider What Seems to Be Impossible

A lot of being a different thinker is about being open to limitless possibilities. In time, I have gradually become more and more open to what many of us would probably call very strange ideas.

To me, ideas are something we should explore more deeply. Often, we want to be lazy, so we are quick to discount or discredit a different type of thought. However, those are the ones I am most curious and open to.

Different thinking is so rare that if I am exposed to it, I am highly open to it. I will not believe it without any evidence or logic, but I will deeply think through it on my own – to figure out if it is possible this could even be true. I will look for better theories that describe a phenomenon. Sometimes an idea may sound unbelievable, but if there are no better theories out there, you may have to take it seriously.

Understanding That NOT Everything Needs to Be Productive, Efficient, nor Profitable

I make efforts to always have time in my life where I don’t need to be doing anything in particular. This isn’t due to laziness. This is because to think differently, you must have time where you do not need to think in one specific way.

Everything that people do as a normal part of their life may actually get in the way of different thinking. Think about it – if we do ordinary things in ordinary ways for ordinary reasons, how likely are we to think differently?

Most people are obsessed with productivity, efficiency, or profitability – or all of these. Well, these things actually get in the way of thinking differently. If your mind meets specific objectives from morning until night, you have no time to think differently. You are forcing yourself to think conventionally through conventional problems for conventional reasons.

To think differently, take more breaks, meditate, run, be with nature, socialize, waste time for the fun of it, remember to breathe, and avoid having your life become just a daily grind.

Focus on Being Your True Self, Rather Than on Being Different

Some people do take pride in being different from others, and I think this is great. We should have our own individuality. However, if someone is too rebellious, often this can actually become predictable. As whatever you say or do, they will simply disagree and do something else. Rather than thinking differently, they are using you or the norm as a benchmark, and then they will purposely avoid doing the norm.

I believe it’s much more useful to pursue your own way of being. You do not always need to specifically avoid doing what other people do to be different. Enough people do this to where it is not very different at all, anyway. For example, how different do you think the rebellious teenager is who refuses to follow the rules – it’s quite common, isn’t it?

Rather, when you focus on being and becoming your true self as you are, there will always be something different about you than everyone else. You can allow this difference in you to shine to think more differently.

Be the Difference Maker

First, I don’t know if I can teach anyone to think differently. Most people think in normal ways, most of the time. Personally, I don’t feel particularly skilled at different thinking, but enough people have noticed this from me that I must agree – it does seem that I think differently.

Thinking or being different is not good in itself, of course. What matters is what we do with this. First, consider if it’s worth thinking more differently in your life. Do you often find yourself stuck or not knowing what to do? Different thinking may provide a path forward for you. Are you committed to resolving big, complex problems without any clear solutions? Different thinking could help.

As a human species, I sometimes feel like we are stuck, not having a good path forward to help us out of the big world problems we have created. I think that we need to value and promote our different thinkers now more than ever, as ultimately, they will be the ones who make the difference. When these difference-makers arise, the least we can do is pay attention and be open to what they have to say.

Think or Do Something Different Today

Today, work on thinking or doing something different.

If you have trouble thinking differently, you may wish to try doing something different than you normally would.

It’s actually quite easy:

• Drive a different route to work

• Start a conversation with someone new

• Read a book you normally would not read

• Get creative: write a story, draw something, make something

• Listen to a speaker who holds completely different viewpoints from your own

Doing different things can help promote different thinking, which can help you to become the difference maker.

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If you are curious about learning to think differently, I would particularly recommend reading The 7 Levels of Change: Different Thinking for Different Results by Rolf Smith.

Also, you may be interested in one of my books, Idea Hacks: Come up with 10X More Creative Ideas in 1/2 the Time

Stop Thinking on Autopilot – 8 Tips to Wake Your Mind

Thinking is an interesting activity because it seems to be done on our own, yet we also borrow thoughts from the people around us. Sometimes if we are not careful, we may be borrowing other people’s thoughts too heavily, rather than thinking on our own.

One of the worst things we can do is assume that our thinking is already perfect. There is always something we can do to improve the way that we think. And, of course, the way that we think tends to influence our actions in the real world.

Our thoughts and the way we think are quite important, yet often we don’t give this idea much thought - the irony.

If you think on autopilot, you may also take action on autopilot, and you may be barely conscious of your life and not fully even realize this. This autopilot life is something we must learn to overcome by focusing on our thinking.

I believe we all think on autopilot at least some of the time – but fortunately, this post will help us to snap out of it.

Initially, I wanted to make this post about Critical Thinking – but I believe these are actually some of the fundamental thinking principles you need before you can develop into a critical thinker.

Let’s begin.

1. Get a Different Point of View

By being in your mind and body, you usually have your own point of view to judge things. This can lock you into one way of thinking. Rather, it will help grow your thinking abilities if you expose yourself to different cultures, backgrounds, and belief systems. You should seek to empathize and try to deeply understand how different people work and think. In time, you will find that your way of thinking is not the single right way to think.

Example: If your friend tells you that Native Americans exhibit a wide variety of negative qualities, you can assume that he is correct or read stories and view documentaries that are told from the perspective of Native Americans. You may even choose to interview or communicate with a Native American – but only do so if you are open to new ways of perceiving.

2. Test Your Assumptions

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again - we all make assumptions. I assume every day that the floor I walk on will not break under me. We must make some assumptions to live a normal life. However, for important parts of our lives, we should learn to test our assumptions.

Even when you have information from a reliable source or a source that you trust, test it anyway. Avoid assuming that something is true just because one person or one source told you. You can test it by comparing it to other reliable sources, or perhaps by checking for yourself if the information is actually valid.

Example: If my wife tells me that she turned off all the stove burners, I may check on them to make sure before going to bed. For information that can impact your life, it’s worth checking on those assumptions.

3. Ask Yourself – Who Does This Information Benefit?

Nations build up convenient stories that view themselves in a positive light and view their rivals in a negative way. This may be the same with rival groups or organizations. This can also happen with individuals who end up developing animosity toward each other.

Understand that people tend to focus on information that makes them feel good. When you read information, and it seems to make someone feel good, likely at the expense of others, then you have to start thinking for yourself.

When it is clearly in someone’s benefit that you believe something, you should take extra caution, take a step back and reconsider how accurate this source is.

Example: Next time you hear biased reporting, where every word seems to benefit one group and somehow puts down another group, ask yourself who this is benefiting. Is the information coming from a place where people want to feel good about themselves (or get their audience to feel good about themselves), or are they truly focused on accurate reporting?

4. Come to Your Own Conclusions

When you read or listen to the news the next time, don’t listen to the conclusions that writers or reporters come to. Pretend that you can’t hear it, or simply skip over it. Instead, listen to the facts and the line of reasoning. Then, come to your own conclusions.

You may find that often enough, the conclusions you hear are there to gain people’s attention. The world operates in a way where the more eyes you get on your material, the more money you make. So it is in the news or different agencies benefit if they come to wild conclusions. Those wild conclusions tend to get shared more, incentivizing these agencies to make wilder statements more and more often. Basically, stop trusting the conclusions so much, and stick to the facts.

You can come up with your own conclusions since you have your own mind.

Example: Watch YouTube clips of news reporting - just the part where they focus on facts. List out any mentioned facts, and then come up with your own conclusions based on those facts. Then listen to their conclusions. Compare your conclusions to the ones they come up with. Then ask yourself if you had not done this exercise, would their conclusions have left a greater impact on you? (Perhaps they resorted to name-calling or personal attacks that were not relevant based on the facts.)

5. Be Open to the Possibility of Being Wrong

Many of us make up our minds about something and refuse to consider that we could be wrong. But we should be more open to that idea.

We should learn to pay more attention to whether the “facts” are actually true and correct, whether the line of reasoning is actually correct, and whether the conclusions someone comes to make sense based on the facts and the line of reasoning.

At any point in the process, anyone could be wrong. Are your facts wrong? Is your line of reasoning wrong? Are your conclusions wrong? Even if parts of this chain or process are exaggerated or mistaken, it calls everything into question.

Example: Practice listening to people who have different beliefs or points of view – you can do this with blogs or YouTube. Instead of dismissing their perspective entirely, try to listen to it and consider it fairly. Begin with sources or people you may generally disagree with and who are open, fair, and reasonable in how they talk about issues. Avoid sources that are overly biased and vitriolic – at least when you are beginning.

6. Learn How to Separate Fact from Fiction

To avoid thinking on autopilot, you should develop better systems for figuring out what is true and what is untrue. This can involve asking yourself a variety of questions such as: “Could your senses be deceiving you?”, “Is the source biased,” and “Are they speaking without substance?”

Fortunately, you can learn these tips and much more via a short Free eBook titled What is True? (and What is NOT True) if you sign up here.

7. Learn Something Every Day

A great way to avoid autopilot thinking will be to get into the habit of learning something regularly. There is no good excuse to avoid learning. Most of us make time to get on social media and watch TV and keep up with the news, so we can probably make time to learn something new and meaningful every day.

When you learn more, it becomes difficult for someone to influence you with “facts” that have no basis in reality, a line of faulty reasoning, or conclusions that do not make sense. The more you learn, the more you will realize when you have been given information that doesn’t seem right and deserves to be more properly investigated. If you do not know very much, any piece of information will seem plausible, so you will not know what is worth investigating more deeply.

Example: You can learn by reading blogs or books, engaging in new activities, visiting museums, taking a course (there are plenty of free ones online), listening to podcasts, or finding a tutor or mentor. There are so many ways to learn that you should be able to find something that appeals to you. I would urge you to learn from expert sources based on experience, science, or reason.

8. Don’t Base Your Whole Identity on Another Person or Organization

I often see that people begin to base their whole identity on a particular person, group, or organization. This can be problematic because you will feel the need to agree with everything that this person or group believes in if this happens. Instead, consider that just because you agree or believe in many things that someone else does, does not mean that you are the same. You are allowed to be the same in some ways and different in some ways.

We should always maintain some independence in our thinking. The way we think should be our own – we can be influenced or guided by others – but there is no reason why you must automatically absorb all the ways of thinking from a particular person or group.

Example: If you want to join a group, make it clear that you think for yourself and do not need anyone else to do your thinking for you. You should not feel pressured into agreeing or believing everything that they do. If they are unhappy with this, then it is not a group that you need in your life. If a group wants control over everything you do, including your thoughts, then the connotations here are quite negative – this can be associated with cults or brainwashing, for example.

Otherwise, if you follow someone or a group too closely, take a step back and ask yourself what you really think. Do you truly agree with everything they do, or was it just convenient for you to agree so you wouldn’t need to think things through on your own.

Recommended Readings

The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward Burger and Michael Starbird

Teach Yourself to Think by Edward de Bono

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

How Not to Be Wrong by Jordan Ellenberg

The Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker

Post-Truth by Lee McIntyre

Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Influence by Robert Cialdini

The 7 Levels of Change by Rolf Smith

The Neurogenesis Diet and Lifestyle by Brant Cortright

The Secret Principles of Genius by I. C. Robledo

The Insightful Reader by I. C. Robledo

Who Are You Following?

Most of us are following someone or some group in our lives. As humans, we have strength in numbers, so it is natural for us to belong to a group or various groups.

There are all kinds of groups – your country of origin or ethnicity, age group, hobbies, religion, politics, ethical beliefs, athleticism, occupation, income, and so on.

Take a moment to consider who you are following in this life. Some of the groups you fall in may not be so important to you, but others may have a major influence on your life.

Ask:

What are the groups and leaders that act as a guiding force on your life?

Following is not bad, just as leading is not bad, but we should question whether you are following or leading. What exactly is your group's destination?

Are you truly motivated to work toward betterment, or are you just motivated to live life as a sport where winning is the only true goal?

Are you motivated to think for yourself or to have someone conveniently lay out a plan of action that you can follow without much thought?

Does it matter that what you do is right and good, or are you fine with anything as long as your group wins and gains advantages?

Some of us have lost sight of what is important.

We have decided that winning is all that matters. Or we have decided that having our group like and approve of us is what truly matters. We have come to think that if something makes us feel good, then it is good. And this is not necessarily the case.

We must think deeper.

At the end of the day, are we truly doing what is right?

A good follower should still lead his own mind and does not need a leader to tell him what to think. We should not follow blindly but use the mind and heart to come to our own conclusions.

Ask if your mind is on autopilot, where you hear something from your group, and you automatically assume it to be valid without properly considering alternatives. When this happens, people will repeatedly echo the same thoughts, making them appear valid even if they are not. From there, if the group is influential enough, major world actions can be implemented, such as encouraging people to be harassed or bullied, changing the laws, and in the most extreme cases even war or a great divide, without a good and justifiable reason.

Some people or groups want us to believe something, and so they will spread the information (or misinformation) that benefits their cause, even if it is misguided or untrue.

Today, consider this:

Are you going to lead yourself or be led any way that your groups want to take you?

Are you going to consider the “facts” for yourself, or allow someone else to compile them, analyze them, and then sell you the story that they want you to believe?

You have the right to follow any leader or group you like, but take some time to think for yourself – no one else should do your thinking for you.

Tomorrow’s post will cover some tips and tools for better thinking.

How Do You Deal with A Difficult Situation?

When someone is faced with a difficult situation, this presents us with a critical moment.

If today someone begins to harass you, to get in your face, appearing immensely agitated and perhaps looking for a fight, how will you react?

Some of us will be inclined to get back in their face and yell or argue. Others will try to calm that person down and avoid making it worse. Others may avoid the situation, perhaps backing up and apologizing, and look to remove themselves from the environment. Some people, of course, may react with fear and feel frozen, especially if the person that begins to harass you is much bigger.

If you have never experienced such a thing where an angry person confronted you and they yelled and desired to intimidate you, then that is fantastic. But unfortunately, this is something that can and does happen among colleagues, spouses, friends, and even strangers.

I have learned that when we face any difficult situation, we must deal with the immediate situation. If your mind is somewhere else, or if you panic, you can easily make things worse rather than help to improve the situation.

Something we should consider in these difficult situations is this:

Will my response make things worse?

Most of us are not used to thinking of that because if you get into an ordinary argument with a friend or spouse, you already know based on prior squabbles what the results will probably be. Perhaps you will get angry, yell, then calm down and talk it over to try to find a solution. Since most life situations have some predictability, you may assume that they will unfold similarly to your past situations have unfolded when you are in a new situation.

However, the reality may be that you do not actually know your colleagues that well, or that you do not truly know some people as well as you think you do, or that you cannot possibly predict how a stranger will react to something you do.

When we realize we are in a new and difficult situation, we should have the proper mindset to figure out the situation efficiently. The right mindset may proceed like this:

1. Pause – take a breath or stop what you are doing for a moment to avoid having to react immediately to what is happening. For example, you do not need to feel angry, scared, or defensive – you can see with clear eyes what is happening because you do not need to immediately react (unless you are actually attacked, then you would need to react).

2. Ask yourself if you are about to do something that will only make things worse. Are you just being provoked into getting angry because this individual would like to fight you? Does it truly matter who is right or wrong right now when you are both just getting more agitated? This point is crucially important.

   I have observed that when people find themselves in a difficult situation, they often take actions that make the problem worse somehow or that present them with many new problems to deal with. Basically, when you find yourself in difficult situations, you can easily become your own biggest enemy. Do your best to avoid having this happen.

3. Can you do something to deescalate this situation? Is it an option to apologize or listen and try to understand rather than to react or contradict every statement the other person makes? If the other person is highly irritated and on the verge of wanting to fight, this may not be the best time to discuss things rationally. Perhaps that can wait for another time.

4. If attempts to deescalate are not working, can you try to get someone else (e.g., a colleague or friend) to help you gain control of the situation?

5. If you cannot deescalate nor get someone to help you, can you leave the situation?

6. If you cannot immediately leave the situation, can you defend yourself or present a distraction that will help you escape?

7. If you cannot defend yourself or prepare for an escape, can you brainstorm any further options? Prepare to think outside the box. (This is an important step because every situation will be different, and you may need to find unique solutions for your particular situation.)

Although we have explored this scenario where someone approaches you that is irritated, angry, and in your face, I would also like us to consider that there are actually infinite possible difficult scenarios that we can find ourselves in. Fortunately, the general mindset illustrated above can work for anything. I will rephrase it in a more general way that could be applied to virtually any scenario:

1. Pause - take a breath or stop what you are doing for a moment to avoid having to react immediately to what is happening

2. Ask yourself if you are about to do something that will only make things worse.

3. Can you do something to improve the situation?

4. If attempts to improve the situation are not working, can you get help?

5. If you cannot get help, is there a way to leave the situation?

6. If you cannot leave the situation immediately, can you manage or control it while you wait for help, or can you look for a way to leave the situation?

7. If not, can you brainstorm any further options? Prepare to think outside the box.

The next time you face a difficult situation, try to adopt the above mindset or series of thought processes out. Most of us do not have a general plan in place for dealing with difficult situations. But the reality is that we will all face key situations in our lives sooner or later.

Are you mentally ready for it?

Default Thoughts vs. Reflective Thoughts

There are two types of thoughts. Default Thoughts are those you arrive at as a natural consequence of your prior thinking and your prior actions. For example, as a Hispanic American, if I arrive at a store and a clerk looks at me with disgust and walks away from me rather than greeting me, my immediate thoughts may be that the clerk is a disgusting, racist person. (While this has happened to me, it is infrequent, thankfully.)

Every day we have the option of whether we will stick with our default thoughts and assume them to be true or whether we will engage in more reflective thinking.

Reflective Thoughts are when we choose to more deeply process our default thoughts. Some of my reflections in this particular situation may be as such:

Okay – this clerk appears to not like me and is perhaps a prejudiced person, but what do I gain if I purposely look for confrontation with him? If I do that, then if I am correct about thinking he is a racist, I am just reinforcing his beliefs, “proving” to him that people like me have attitudes, are unlikeable, and cause trouble.

So if I act according to my default thoughts, causing me to get an attitude with this person, then I am making the world a worse place, losing this opportunity to positively impact the people and environment around me.

Please bear with me through this mental exercise. I just want you to understand that it is quite easy to form default thoughts, assume they are the truth, and allow them to affect our whole day. Meanwhile, our default thoughts often represent great falseness in our lives. This case example may not be one you relate to – that is fine, just imagine any scenario where someone appeared to have a distaste for you, without a good reason.

My trick in many life situations (I’m sure I did not invent this) is to pretend that I am not aware of certain things I am actually aware of. I believe this technique is used much more by women than men, but it can be quite useful. If I perceive that someone is in a horrible mood or seems to be prejudiced against me, I will simply behave as I always do, pretending that I did not notice their mood or attitude. Of course, I may quickly look for a way to give them their space.

My default mode of behavior is to be polite with everyone, to treat everyone as if they have some internal importance that I may not be aware of. Every person you see every day is more important than you think. This person may have saved someone’s life, may be managing a multi-million-dollar company, may have raised a family of doctors and teachers, or may have had the potential to do all the above things if he had ever simply been given the opportunity.

When people assume that you are a certain way, and then you show them that you are not like they had assumed, hopefully, this helps to change their perceptions. Hopefully, they can begin to see that they do not need to assume everyone of a certain race, religion, or political party is bad.

Most people are good, or they aspire to be good most of the time. Sometimes, of course, we think we are doing good, but the effects are actually bad. Ultimately, it is our default thoughts that poison us all against each other. And to be frank, often this is driven by news media, social media, and all the people who are stuck in “us vs. them” thinking to an extreme level, who forever blame someone else for all the ills of the world. Many of these people and media have the loudest voices, reminding us over and over that our group hates that group. Or their group hates our group. Or this group started this, and the other group needed to get revenge.

This creates and spurs endless psychological and even physical warfare. Because these are the loudest voices, many of us assume that we live in a scary world, but it can’t possibly be as bad as it is portrayed to be. For instance, the news is built to report mostly negative news – positive stories are rarely reported.

The major caveat here is that the more we think the world is a scary place, the more closed off we all become, afraid to get involved with anything we see, afraid to help, afraid to ask for help, and as you may guess, these thought processes will probably make the world a scarier place to live in.

By thinking we live in a scary world, we make it so.

Something I wish all of us to learn is that our thoughts are potent. We don’t understand the power of a simple thought in this age. And the collective thoughts of masses of humans are incalculably powerful – they are responsible for inventions, religions, philosophies. Still, they are also responsible for needless vitriol and toxicity, misinformation, and warfare.

We must take our thoughts seriously.

How can you help make the world a better place? Do this.

Start thinking about your thinking. Take note of the types of thoughts you often have. Here are some common thoughts people tend to have:

• I am not as good as my peers

• I can never seem to attract any good, successful people into my life

• Everything I do seems to fail.

• Many people don’t like my personality.

• If I had more money, things would work out.

• I’m not smart enough.

I did specifically choose mostly negative thoughts, as these are the ones that tend to cause the most harm in our lives.

Let’s take the thought, “Everything I do seems to fail.”

We have to examine this more carefully.

Everything you do cannot possibly be failing. You are breathing, and your heart is beating, so your body’s systems seem to work just fine. Perhaps you mean that much of what you do at work isn’t going well. Then we can examine certain projects you worked on and see that perhaps there is a pattern of failure. Then we should examine the parts of the projects more carefully. Perhaps 90% of the tasks in your projects went quite well, but that 10% that did not were critical enough to cause big failures. Fine – you can use this information to improve and stop being so hard on yourself. Achieving 90% is an A in school, but sometimes it is a failure in a real-life project.

Be very cautious with general, all-encompassing words, such as Everything / Nothing, Everyone / No one, Always / Never. If you use such words in your thoughts, this should be a big signal that your default thinking is flawed.

As a general rule, we can assume that our default thinking is indeed flawed. This means that if you do not engage in reflective thinking, that most of your thinking is probably flawed. And if most of your thinking is flawed, your whole life may be headed on a path that is not best for you.

You do not need to think reflectively about every single thought you have, but at least try it out for your most common thoughts. If you are not aware of your thoughts, try this exercise. Set the alarm for every hour of the day (at 8:00, then 9:00, and so on). Every time the alarm goes off, write down what you were thinking at that moment. Later on, look for patterns in your thoughts. Then, think reflectively about your thoughts. Scrutinize them carefully. You will find mistakes, fallacies, incorrect assumptions, and you will see that you can improve your thinking.

If you find it difficult to properly examine your thoughts, it may help to read about cognitive biases, logical fallacies, or other books in the psychology / self-development domains.

When you improve your thinking, you will improve your behaviors, which will help create more positive and fruitful thoughts, and you will create a virtuous positive cycle of thoughts and actions in your life and possibly others’ lives.