How to think straight

This article is on thinking, on taking thought and coming up with thoughtful solutions to the problems facing us and thus achieving our objectives.

I was unable to think effectively when I was young and this got me into a huge amount of trouble. My mind had certain knee-jerk reactions to the situations I encountered and these reactions served as my understanding of the world and myself. These reactions I had learned from my parents who are certainly intellectual midgets, whatever their other qualities might be.

In my view the reasons accurate and logical thinking is important are as follows:

1) We need to be able to understand the lies and the malicious motives of the people we meet and deal with. We are living in a deeply flawed and imperfect world and all of us will encounter people who wish us ill and who have malicious intentions. We need to be able to protect ourselves from such people.2) An important dictum of Sun Tzu's The Art of War is to know ourselves and know the enemy. Sun Tzu said, "If you know yourself and know the enemy you need not fear the results of a thousand battles." Life is a battle, a struggle for survival even and we need to equip ourselves with the proper tools and weapons of thinking as we make our way through it.3) We need accurate thinking to face our many problems and achieve our objectives.

In the book, Practical Thinking Edward De Bono talks of the five ways to understand. I still remember now, some 15 or 16 years later, the shock of surprise that I had when I realized for the first time that there are ways of thinking other than the habitual reactions that I had been used to for as long as I could remember.

Edward De Bono is famous for the concept and techniques of Lateral Thinking which enable us to be creative. However it was this book by him on Practical Thinking that I found most useful and inspiring.

As I said earlier I had been in the habit of reacting my way through life. It was now necessary for me to reverse the habits of a lifetime and learn to think straight. In other words - dis- identify from these habitual reactions and learn the new responses of thinking straight.

Now with my interest in meditation, dis-identifying from the mind's antics is not new or difficult for me, but then - at the time I read Practical Thinking - it was a completely new and indeed a life changing concept.

I have referred to Edward De Bono and his books but I am not going to comment on them except to say that they are very good and have contributed to completely transforming my life. Instead of that I would like to describe the method by which we can learn to think straight.

It is a 3 part process:

1) Take ourselves out of the equation.2) Find yourself a role model whose thought process you admire.3) Imitate.

Now for a few additional comments:

Taking yourself out of the equation involves knowing yourself. You must be familiar with yourself, your habitual patterns of thought, your hopes, fears, complexes and phobias. Anything and everything about yourself. And having know yourself it then becomes possible for you to give the thought process or emotional reaction a name and then DIS-IDENTIFY from it. Give the impulse room to play itself out and witness it. Do not confuse this impulse or habitual reaction as thinking. It is just a habitual reaction and you need to learn to reverse this habit of reacting your way through life.

The second step is to find yourself a role model whose thought process you admire. I myself was an avid reader when young and devoured books like Sherlock Holmes, Dick Francis, Wilbur Smith, Bertrand Russell and many other authors. These proved to be very good role models for me. Their thought process took into account the evidence, was accurate, was based on sound ethics and did not jump to conclusions through habitual reactions.

Once you have found yourself some role models that you like you must read anything and everything on them or by them. And read the same books repeatedly, again and again. Make these thought processes a part of your being. And this can only happen through repetition.

Think of a person learning martial arts. He practices the same kick or punch many thousands of times till it is ingrained in him. This is similar to what you must now do.

The third step is to imitate these role models. That is the easy part - anybody can imitate.

If you have done steps one and two thoroughly and properly then you will find step three - it actual thinking itself - to be the simplest and most natural thing in the world.

I am recommending this method and I know it works through experience. I have lived it.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and that it will be useful to you.

Stay tuned for more in this continuing series.

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