Cause and effect hog the limelight on the stage of life’s mysteries. We get trapped in circular arguments.
Did God Create Man or did Man create God?
My opinion: organised religion is the lazy man’s moral compass. No need to debate the nuances of right and wrong if a best-selling book tells you the difference. That old book has been translated several times from the original teachings of one wise man, and each translation has its own agenda. This topic will be the subject of many more rambles on this site.
Can you make something real by pretending it’s real?
Try telling somebody bad news with a smile on your face. If you pretend the news is good, it might help to deal with the consequences, but it won’t change the news.
Are fat people unhealthy or are unhealthy people fat?
Body shape has too many variables to sort out cause from effect, so anyone who claims to have a simple answer, doesn’t – most especially if they’re asking for money to know their secret.
Do facts hold the truth or does truth make it fact?
In the quest for reason in a random world, the answer to what comes first is usually popular opinion.
People with nothing better to do have created a formula to break through the circular argument. It’s called the scientific method.
- Ask a question
- Devise a theory to test possible answers
- Design experiments to test the theory
- Draw conclusions from the results of tests
It might seem logical, but add the human element and it’s only good for people who think just like you, or are ready to be convinced that you know the answers.
How can you come up with a theory that isn’t influenced by your personal life experience?
Those experiences are unique to you, so the theory is biased. Then the design of your experiment will exaggerate the distance between you and the true answer. If your theory is flawed, and your experiment is bogus, your conclusions don’t stand a chance.
The scientific method has managed to answer the question: does positive thinking result in success? The answer is YES!
There are plenty of experiments to prove we can convince ourselves that something is working when it isn’t. This placebo effect works, both positively and negatively for a person’s health and well being.
What is the Placebo Effect?
How does it work?
Now, we need to ask the question: is positive thinking a cause or effect of success?
If you consider your life is a success, it’s easy to think positively, and attract more success to you. But if you think your life sucks, and that is proved to you every day, it’s easier to believe in escapism (drugs, religion, travel) than it is to think hard about how much your life sucks.
When you’re in rut, it’s very difficult to have faith in something for long enough to make it happen. But people created God by believing in him/her. And genius has been shown to be more directed practice and persistence, than being born with talent and/or intelligence.
To achieve genius level in the pursuit of excellence you require passion. If you have no passion, it will take too much time and energy so you’ll stop at “good enough” in any attempt to change your life for the better. Unless you’re prepared to die or die trying, you’ll end up with whatever hasn’t killed you.
So, if you haven’t achieved what you consider to be the best life possible, you have three choices:
- Learn to love your life
- Set some realistic goals and be prepared to work really hard to achieve them.
- Find something/someone to blame for the fact that you don’t like your life.
There’s nothing wrong with learning to love the life you have, provided you do a good job of it. Option 3 will lead to drugs, religion or aimless travel.
If you choose Option 2, let’s apply the scientific method:
- Ask your question: What do you want from life? If you’re looking for a non-specific answer you’ll never get to the next stage. So a good question is “What path do I need to take that will make me a lot of money?” not “How do I get rich?”. Instead of “How do I find the right person to start a family?” a better question would be, “How do I prepare myself to be worthy of the partner I’d like to have?”
- Devise a theory: I would be happier if…..
- Design an experiment. This could be anything from planning a university degree to moving house, or getting out of a relationship.
- Draw conclusions. To be constructive, best to remember there is no such thing as a mistake, just learning experiences.
So fake it ‘til you make it! This will work, unless you’re trying to come first.