101 THINGS TO DO
IN LIFE
NO.5
CONFORMITY IS GOOD
NON-CONFORMITY IS BETTER
In the first 3 Posts in this series – we dealt with the following three, most important decisions and actions, that are needed for successful and satisfying life
(1) You must make a conscious decision to live 101 years. Whether you decide to live up to 60 or up to 101 – they can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Your mind, body and actions will all be geared to the decision you have made in your mind. If you decide and plan to live a healthy, fulfilling life up to 101 – you can achieve it. There is no 100 % guarantee or assurance on that. You are not the only force acting on your life; but, you are the major force. There are many, outside forces in the universe – which also act on your life and your decisions. They have their own mechanism and goals. But, they can possibly aid you in fulfilling your wish – if your wish is not against their universal goals. I have seen a number of people who lived past 100 years – without much dependence on others. They were cheerful themselves and were cheer-leaders for others even at 100. These wishes and decisions can become self fulfilling prophecies.
(2) Having decided to live a healthy, fulfilling life for 101 years - you must now become the conscious Driver of your own destiny and your own life. You must, foremost of all, decide to keep your physical and mental Health in the pink for these 101 years. What is life – except physical and mental well-being?
(3) Know the Essential Principles governing your Food, water, Dress, Sleep, Exercise, recreation and so on. – The essence of all these principles is - keep them moderate and keep them regulated. Your body and mind need a certain amount of discipline. Avoid extremes in any of these life needs. Stay moderate.
(4) The Fourth decision to take in life is - Be courageous; Be a dare devil. If you are not courageous – your life is dull, dry and drab. Courage is the mid path between Hesitance and rashness. Courage implies that - you must constantly raise the bar on your performance to reach worthy goals. The most essential things in life – like love, friendship, truth, facing injustice, compassion to the unfortunate – all require you to be courageous first. Then, all other qualities follow. Discover the purpose of life and achieve it – with courage. When you dare, life’s difficulties dissolve.
Now, we will see the 5th factor, the 5th of the 101 things to do in life.
This factor is – “non-conformity”, or “out-of-the-box thinking and doing”, or “creative thinking and action” or “lateral thinking and action.”
All these phrases denote approximately the same principles – with some minor differences. Creative thinking is different from another similar sounding quality called critical thinking.
Human Life has both orderliness and chaos built into it. It needs conformity in certain matters and non-conformity in certain others.
We all adhere to conformity – in matters of food, dress, sleep, profession and other daily routines. You don’t change your food daily – without inviting illness to your doorstep. Your residence is fixed. Your relations are more or less fixed. Your language of communication is fixed.
Your physical body adheres to certain timings for waking up, sleeping and hunger. Your mind has a large set of habits, attitudes and patterns of thinking. They don’t change moment to moment or day to day. They remain fixed. "Everything has changed except our way of thinking" says, Albert Einstein, referring to humanity’s historical or long term thinking habits. In the normal course, thinking patterns change but very gradually.
Conformity keeps us within a comfort zone in many of these essential aspects. Comfort zone provides us huge comfort when we live within its bounds. Most people find it very difficult to live outside their comfort zone. You can’t eat food to which you are not accustomed. You can’t wear a dress to which you are not accustomed. You can’t sleep easily at a different place or beyond your normal timings or even on a different bed to which you are not accustomed. You can’t speak freely to people to whom you are not accustomed. You find it difficult to live in a place to which you are not accustomed. Comfort zone rules your life in all these aspects – and is good for you in many ways.
Conformity rules our life in the following aspects :– (i) where a clear cause & effect sequence exists (ii) rules/procedures / custom based behavior – good morning (iii) Environment / Nature driven behavior – like dress, food (iv) Habit / hormone driven behavior –anger, sex etc (v) Physical needs – hunger, thirst etc (vi) superiors orders / requests (vii) Fixed Paths of behavior (viii) Necessities / comforts / luxuries. But, this is only in respect of the near term. In the long term – one can change any of these things – and most people do change.
Comfort zone is by keeping you within small, unseen boundaries – acts as a strong barrier to your success. It reduces you to a Frog in the well.
Lifelong conformity is good enough for a buffalo, and for many other animals. A buffalo is happy to be tied at one place and continues to eat the same grass, day after day, till it dies. It doesn’t feel any boredom.
But, man is not made to live like a buffalo. His mind wants to explore the whole universe, master its secrets, and rule over it, rather than be its slave. There is a constant restlessness, a permanent itch, built into the mind of man. There is no such itch in any other animals or birds.
That itch only – is what we call by different names, as – creativity, lateral thinking, out-of-the-box thinking and so on. To raise new questions, explore new possibilities, regard old problems from new angles - requires creative imagination and marks the real advances in science, says Albert Einstein. Imagination is more important than knowledge, he says.
Why is this itch in us for creativity? Life, any way, is constantly changing in us and around us. The whole universe is in a state of flux. We are also constantly changing. None of us are, as we were, 10 years ago. On a moment to moment or day-to-day basis, we may not perceive this change in us. But, we know, there is change. This change occurs according to nature’s own cycle. We age and every thing ages – as time moves forward. Nature takes every living being, including us, through a birth – growth – decay – death cycle. This process includes diseases, disasters and so on.
The itch in man is to break this nature’s cycle, as much as he can. There is circularity in man’s relationship with nature. Nature uses man. But, man also uses nature. Man has enormous capabilities to use Nature, when he thinks beyond his ordinary needs. It is said that nature is happy to reveal its secrets to the man who ardently seeks them. If there is a deep question in us, nature presents the answer before us in many ways.
To think outside the box is to look further, to try not to think of the obvious things, but try to think beyond them. The Box represents all the constraints that we see in finding newer solutions to a problem. It implies – you are inside the Box – and you are feeling the constraints of the Box. You need curiosity, creativity and imagination – to break out of your constraints.
Your Mind really is the Box – and not the external constraints that it sees. You must transcend your own mind’s limitations. Give the mind a lot more freedom and courage than it exhibits normally. Push it beyond the box, beyond its comfort zone. Some times, the freedom is deep inside the box itself. Freedoms look like constraints! So – explore inside and outside the box both.
There is a famous 9 dot puzzle – 3 in a row,3 in a vertical line square shaped structure - in which you must connect all dots with 4 or less straight lines. It requires thinking beyond the obvious to do it. Think beyond the square. That is the trick.
It is like this. If you hold on to the Ball in your hands, You can’t Play. Throw it in different ways and go after it. That is how you discover your talents and become a better player.
So, how does creativity exhibit itself?
You will find new perspectives, new ideas, new methods to even routine work. You will try to do things differently. You will find new uses, new additions, deletions and new combinations and act on them. You will find new users and new values. You will add beauty, aesthetics, ethics, technology and science – to all that you use and propose to use.
In short – you will see what you did not see earlier and hear, smell, taste and sense what you did not earlier. Some times, creative thinking part may arise in one brain. Creativity in action may come from another.
But, how do you become creative in thinking and action? Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned, says Edward de Bono. Creativity comes out of thinking in unusual, unorthodox ways. If you wish to advance into the infinite, explore the finite in all directions, says Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
In creative thinking, failures can be numerous. At some time - when the creative thinking continues persistently, comes a daring, winning idea.
The search for new ideas can also be done by a Group of creative thinkers. You can call this group thinking or brain storming. Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has, says Margaret Mead.
In life, we must be willing to ask all sorts of weird, foolish, silly questions – to become creative thinkers. There are no foolish questions and no man becomes a fool until he has stopped asking questions, says Saul Steinberg. As child, we all asked numerous stupid, silly questions, but they were not stupid or silly. Not asking them was.
The world can be divided into 3 Groups – Creators, critics, bystanders. While a creative man is busy creating, he has little time to be a critic of others’ work. But, the critic has too much time only for criticizing the creators and has no time or talent for creating. Critic can be constructive or non-constructive. Constructive critic can enhance creator’s skills by his suggestions, though, he cannot himself create any thing. Non-constructive critic finds mistakes, lapses, loopholes only in the creator’s work – but cannot see the talent and creativity embedded in his work. The bystander looks at the creator’s work, may find it beautiful – but does not know the work, talent and skills that went into its creation.
Construction (of known things) – uses existing principles. Creation (of new things) uses new principles. So, how can your mind stumble on and pick up new ideas, and discard the Old ones?
Computers can give you lot of known Answers to known questions – but not answers / Ideas for unknown questions. These still have to come from Humans. To become a creative thinker – try the following :
Ø Practice any dance form : Every dance form is highly creative. The Chinese use tai chi. The Indian Bharata Natyam is excellent. You can represent any idea in the form of dance. It will let you think outside the box-effortlessly! In representing a problem – you can hit upon a solution too – effortlessly. It is also Good exercise for the body!
Ø Write a song or poetry on your idea, or problem; represent it as beautifully and as weirdly in words, as you want. Some where, you may hit a solution too.
Ø Sing it – while thinking about it.
Ø Draw a diagram (fish-bone / Cause-and-Effect /Ishikawa Diagram) on it; or draw a picture on it. Make it as beautiful and as weird as you can think of
Ø Do mind-mapping diagrams
Ø Study another Industry, another country, other type of people who may be facing similar questions –study their methods – you may find which you never attempted.
Ø See how another religion, another culture looks at such issues and find why
Ø Attempt to teach a class & look at the problem and solutions from new ways.
Ø Books which you don’t normally read – can give you new ways of thinking and solving problems.
Ø Go through it in zig-zag method. Upside down or any abnormal way to discover the relationships better.
Ø Seek solution from children, old people, your spouse and totally unconnected people .
Ø Start anywhere in the middle where you find some comfort – go back and forth from there. Work backwards from any stage.
Ø Take a Bath. Wash your face. Change your dress. Freshen up. Then think again.
Ø Sit in meditation for 10 minutes. Then, come back to the problem. Every 2 hours once – repeat the process.
Ø Go out for a walk. Play any game. Come back; freshen up and think.
Ø Use search engines – for parts of the problem
Ø Can you eat ice cream along with the cup? You can. Now.
Ø Read very, very old books
Ø Think of the problem in sleep / dream.
Ø Try to find the best time of the day for your creativity and think then
Ø Do brainstorming. Several brains have better capability to throw up more ideas than one brain
Ø Do the six thinking hats exercise of Edward de Bono
Ø When you come to a big block – you possibly can’t see through it. Go past the block by taking a detour. On the other side – you may get better ideas.
Ø Ask all unusual, hard questions relevant to the problem and solution – and some distantly connected ones as well
Ø But, some times, when you come up with a better mousetrap, nature is ready with a better mouse. The game continues.
Ø Keep your curiosity alive – like that of a child.
Ø There is a Eagle’s eye-view (from high above the problem), a balcony view (a closer but outside view) and a close view from within. Each gives you its own insight.
Ø Look for the nearest link in the chain.
Ø keep a goal. But welcome the intermittent landmarks
Ø Generate many ideas – so that you can find many ways of doing a thing. One of them is the best way.
Ø Never be afraid of making mistakes. Never be afraid of failures. They will be followed by success.
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