Think smarter
You’re probably familiar with Albert Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same over and over while expecting different results. Too bad there’s so much of it going around. We try to plan for the future, solve problems and manage our daily affairs using methods that aren’t very effective but don’t have any alternatives.
The problem is that we have come to rely almost exclusively on the capabilities associated with the left side of the brain, such as logic, analysis and abstraction. We have been taught to dismiss the capabilities assocated with the right side of the brain - such as imagination, big picture thinking and play - as marginal, reserved for artists and children. And then there are those weird types of thinking that don't even seem to originate in the brain at all, such as intution and dreaming. We use them, but we don't really trust them because we don't understand them. Einstein also said that a problem can’t be solved with the same level of thinking that created it. A lot of the problems we face are actually created in part by this over-reliance on one half of our brain, so we can't solve them by doing more of what got us here. That's what we mean by "think smarter, not harder". We need to learn how to see the whole, not just the parts. We need to recognize the value of quantitative factors in our experience, not just the ones that are easy to count. (Albert also said "not everything that counts can be counted") and we need to learn how to play with our brains and not just work with them. That's Whole-Brained Thinking. |
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© 2013 Whole-Brained Thinking