Having the courage to update our mental model when the current one doesn’t serve us well.

Photo by Le Minh Phuong on Unsplash

Let’s face it, we wouldn’t build a bridge using an engineering model which is proven to be faulty and  which doesn’t work, because we know that it caused the collapse of a bridge before and so through experience we have tested it and know that we need to change our model.

 

We don’t have a problem when it comes to things like engineering or botany or geology, physics and maths, music etc to update our models when we discover the one we have used does not work. We accept the cause and effect.

 

But when it comes to our feelings and emotions, and when it comes to human relationships or our relationships with our thoughts, we start going all mystical.

 

The reality is that all our thoughts and speech and actions have consequences. This means that they all follow the rule of “cause and effect”.

 

When things don’t go well, it pays to go back to the causes and investigate whether we can change our mental model. To examine the thoughts which went into the system and which created the results.

 

It comes as a shock to some people that what went on in their mind had anything to do with the results, positive or negative.

 

That’s where having a practice like meditation where we can be familiar with our thoughts and mental models will help us see clearly. And have the motivation and will to update our mental models when necessary.

 

I’m curious, how many of us can look at our thoughts and be detached from them just like we are detached when we see engineering and botany and music, and tell ourselves that they all follow the natural law of “cause and effect”, and be prepared to do something about the causes to change the outcomes in future?