People rarely quote their next-door neighbour or their barista in a book or a speech. We (myself included) like to quote people with gravitas. Women and men who have achieved things, who are great thinkers, whom we look up to as persons with wisdom. Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Darwin, Hume, Earhart, Sartre, Woolf, Einstein, de Beauvoir, Sontag – it’s a long list.
There is something foreign, almost discomfiting when we consider our next-door neighbour might be contemplating big questions, seeking answers to some of the world’s most fundamental questions. It’s almost like they’re messing about with nuclear fission or picking at the fabric of the universe – things that should be left to the experts, people who know what they’re doing.
The great thinkers and us
From an early age we’re taught who the pivotal thinkers were that changed our understanding of the world. We’re taught their ideas and theories and shown how to apply these to the world around us. (or at least to questions in exam papers). And as young adults we go out into the world to build careers.
We are fed this knowledge and sent out into the world to become engineers, businesspeople, marine biologists, and bricklayers. The implication being that most of the great thinking has happened, or other people are responsible for it. Our role is to execute, to apply this knowledge and to continue implementing these solutions to the world around us.
“Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats; they can do it but they’d prefer not to.” Daniel Kahneman
And this suits us pretty well. It is accurate to say that we are designed to execute. We are far better at building space shuttles that explaining why space exploration is important to humanity. And we can build planes, but we’re still not sure why they’re able to fly.
The type of thinking required to understand the underpinnings of our actions and the foundations of the world around us takes up an inordinate amount of energy and when performed, looks utterly unproductive.
Deep, strategic thinking is effortful. It might require periods of looking off into space, or out of a window and often leads to dead ends. In an office environment, staring off into space with very little to show for it isn’t accepted as a particularly productive way to spend your time. So, we opt for what I call executional thinking, doing what we’ve done before. It’s automatic. The brain sees a problem and offers a solution based on what’s worked previously in a similar situation. And for our modern society this works well.
When Executional Thinking lets us down
Executional thinking is useful and requires far less energy to perform than strategic thinking. However, there are dangers involved in not considering things more deeply.
Let’s look at the thinking process many young people apply to deciding on a career. They might have thoughts along the lines of; it has to be fun, I don’t want any two days to be the same, and I want to do cool stuff. With those criteria, they move out into the world looking for a job. However, without understanding what ‘fun’ means to them, or why they want their days to be varied, or what they consider to be ‘cool’, finding a career that genuinely suits them as individuals is more about luck than actual planning. In fact, people who experience dissatisfaction later on with their careers, in many cases, didn’t take the time to apply some strategic thinking when applying and accepting jobs earlier in their careers.
A friend made an astute observation on this very topic a couple of years ago. He pointed out that when we plan our holidays, we might spend a few hours a week leading up to the departure planning where to go, where to stay, what airline to fly, what to do once we’re there, where to hire cars etc. All the while, taking into consideration what are experiences you want to have based on what you and your family like. Now, if we break this down. Let’s say we spend 10 hours planning and booking a two week holiday. That’s 2.9% of the time we’ll spend holiday in planning and preparing for the trip.
Now, how long do we spend thinking and researching our careers? If we applied as much thought and effort into our jobs as we do into our work, then most of us would have spent around 12 – 14 months just planning and thinking about what we want to do professionally.
Personally, I’ve agonised over my career but in all honesty I haven’t, till recently, thought deeply about what I really want from the work I do and how that relates to life I would like to lead. Had I spent 2.9% of the time I will spend working strategizing about what work to do, I suspect my life would have looked very different.
We must start believing we can be great thinkers
We aren’t taught to think. Instead, we are taught to apply the knowledge we have acquired from others and to solve obstacles based on the thinking others have done. Very few of us are taught or take the time to understand what thinking is and how to develop our own ideas and insights.
Historical thinkers being presented to us as intellectual giants doesn’t help this cause. The insinuation that’s made when we put these historical figures on pedestals is that great insightful thinking should be left to great minds. That type of thinking is not for us. Our role is to learn what the greats give us and then to leave things at that.
We should, as individuals challenge this notion. Certainly, great insights about life, the world and oneself do require an understanding of the meaningful ideas that came before. However, at some point we need to develop our own ideas, our own way of thinking about a topic that’s meaningful to us. As Seneca said, “Men who have made these discoveries before us are not our masters, but our guides.”
Great historical ideas are railings we hold onto. They’re there to give us confidence during our early ignorance. And, as we grow more knowledgeable, we’re in a position to let go of these railings and wade into deeper water by ourselves. To make our own observations and to practice some deep thinking of our own. To start making our next-door neighbours uncomfortable. And, with time and some serious thinking, to perhaps challenge those who came before.
The easiest place to start is always with subject matter you find interesting, and then to take the time and ask, ‘why is that?’ and ‘what does this mean?’. Use questions like a pickaxe to dig and uncover nuggets of insights and idea veins. And then it’s a matter of combining these with one another and with the things you already know to come up with your own theory or undiscovered view of the world.
I believe any one of us are capable of great ideas, of great thinking. We just need to take the time to think.