“Cogito ergo sum,” Rene Descartes’ Latin translation of the statement he made several years earlier in his native tongue, “Je pense donc je suis” or “I think therefore I am” is worth considering. How often do you think, really think about that which you are doing?
In one way or another we are all creatures of habit. Our busy minds process the world around us and the more familiar we become with our immediate environment – the actors, the sets, the sights and sounds – the less we seem to think consciously about it. The house under construction on your way home from work goes from novelty to blurry background in very short order. The new paint in your living room or the new haircut made everything look different, but just for a few days and then it became the new “normal.”
Habitual actions repeated enough times become virtually involuntary. While valuable in certain applications, such as brushing your teeth, washing your hair or speaking your primary language, the lack of sharp critical thinking can lead you into dangerous waters rather quickly. If you’ve ever snapped out of a “trance” while driving home via a familiar route, you know what I mean.
One deterrent to active, vibrant thinking is the prevalence of the “herd mentality” in human thought. I found this interesting article from PsychCentral that describes the herd mentality: http://psychcentral.com/news/2008/02/15/herd-mentality-explained/1922.html.
Rare is the individual who uses his capacity to reason to its fullest. It is wonderful to watch 3 and 4 year olds explore the world around them. They are constantly thinking. Virtually every experience is a learning laboratory, a chance to try a new approach to test a theory. That approach to living and learning rarely stays in tact after a thorough education and sufficient peer and societal pressure, but those who do manage to continue to nurture their “learning” selves seem to me to be the most happy of all people.
What new challenges have you accepted recently? What old things have you looked at in a new way recently? How often have you thought about trying something new but failed to follow through based on either lethargy or conversely, on being too busy? A new skill, the exploration of an inner talent, a childhood dream, perhaps? A friend of mine is starting a writing class to expand her capabilities in poetry…kudos to her! What would you like to try?
If you are to enjoy a long and fulfilling life, you must realize that your fulfillment comes from helping others to their fulfillment. That said, your ability to help others can be expanded through your continued learning, development and refinement of your capacities.
I encourage you to reach out, to stretch a little where you’ve sat perhaps complacently in a comfortable situation. Let your life be a refulgent setting that serves to inspire others to their greatness.
Gregory Hake 
This certainly seems to be a skill that requires practice to master, then it has the opportunity to become a habit. I’ve read it takes 21 days for something to become a habit; easy to change one or fall into one.
Earle Nightingale suggested getting up in the morning 30 minutes before you have to, just to think, writing down ideas and thoughts you might want to explore later. A space to let your creativity emerge.
I love his ideas on thinking; how it is the key to a deeply satisfying life. It really levels the playing field for our individual opportunity for happiness.
He said,”Your world is a living expression of how you are using and have used your mind…The mind moves in the direction of our currently dominant thoughts.”
I don’t have to look far to find something to take up my precious thinking space. There’s so much to choose from, things I call chewing gum or junk food for my mind or ideas, subjects, books and people whose lives and experiences feed my creativity and kindle my thoughts.
I’ve enjoyed this subject and the comments. Thanks everyone!
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I agree with Mitch that this blog provides practical advice and inspiration along with the wonderful comments that are made by those who are “inspired”. My youngest daugther and I have made a “pact” to make sure that the majority of our time that we spend in a day is spent being creative or helpful in some way or another. We sit with each other in the evening and go over our day, looking back to see what we have done that was productive or creative. This is amazing! We are all capable of so much more than we can even imagine if we just stay alert to the opportunities. It is clearly a choice that we make. Will we squander our days away or will we choose to be a part of doing something that matters?
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What a great challenge to take “spring cleaning” to new levels! We can throw out what is outdated or holding us back, brush the dust off forgotten treasures, start a new exercise program for our underdeveloped capacities, start feeding a healthy diet to our undernourished creativity, and develop into happier, more fulfilled, more interesting people who are add value to world and those around them. Thanks for the spark for my ignition today!
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We love your topic today, and, more importantly, we are excited to embark on a week of being conscious where we’ve been unconscious. I’m sure there will be a lot of surprises! How fantastic to ignite dormant areas and live life even more fully!
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Gregg Hake’s Blog is unique in that you are both setting an ‘informed pace’ for readers to follow, and challenging the reader out of the areas where they may be blindly following the ‘herd’. Your blog is doubly rewarding in that both your posts and your reader comments hold inspiring resources for further reading, viewing and doing which gives each one the means to be setting the informed pace. I pondered the potential stats of this and how quickly it seems the world could be caught up in the updraft of a collective of individuals who are independently awakening their capacity for creative thinking and inspiring their unique connections in the world to get off their rears and LIVE up to a potential beyond the habitual herd mentality. Awesome!
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This is such a great subject to explore.
The book “Flow” goes into great detail about the value of attention, he sees it as “psychic energy”, a power we all have, a “priceless resource”.
It is the ability to focus, oblivious to distractions and concentrate as long as it takes to achieve a goal. This is the muscle that it takes to think, to stick with something as you explore it.
Our modern world has been set up to revere the “multi-tasker” which gives us the skill of quantity not quality of thought.
The more a person can think and focus the greater is their potential for enjoyment in life not just pleasure.
I have to add, like every source of power, it can be used to create or destroy ourselves. As we discussed in earlier posts, what we choose to think about and give our power to is another question.
If we really want to make a difference in our lives and in the world, this is the power we were given from birth; you don’t have to afford it or wait to inherit it, but it can go unused.
Thanks for a very inspiring start to my day.
Your blog is earning it’s name; Onward and Upward!
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I would venture to guess that just about all of us have thought about taking a class, or in some other way exploring a latent talent. It is so easy to “think” about it, but then we get distracted by our busy lives and daily routines and never actually get around to doing it. I don’t think anyone lies on their death bed and thinks, “I wish I had watched more TV!”
Thanks for sharing this challenge with us. Today is a great day to check out low-cost classes at your community college, or explore the “happenings” in the arts and culture section of your local newspaper.
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Hitler once boasted, “What luck for rulers that men do not think.” If you don’t think, you are going to be ruled by someone else. If you think, you can rule yourself and that is what makes the difference between someone who is successful in living and someone who is not, between someone who is a victim, and someone who is not, regardless of circumstance.
I’m reading an excellent book by Seth Godin (one of the most influential bloggers in the world), called “Linchpin.” In the book, he looks at the history of humanity from the industrial revolution forward and how we, as a society have been trained not to think, in fact, we’ve been indoctrinated that way through our educational system, the media, our beliefs and workplace. He says, we’ve all been prepped to be a “compliant worker in the local factory.”
The thing is…we have a choice and it doesn’t have to be this way. Godin says, in order to become the linchpin, which is “an individual who can walk into chaos and create order, someone who can invent, connect, create and make things happen,” you just have to make that choice. That may sound too simple, but I believe that it is the case.
Perhaps it’s fear that keeps us in the herd mentality; the tendency to destroy anything that feels intimidating, risky or munificent. Until we recognize (through honest thought) the areas where we tend to kill that creativity that is innate to us and fearlessly face it, we will remain the same. I really appreciated your thoughts this morning as I have been keen to see how I can begin to think outside of the box and let creativity flow in my life.
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