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Thought of the Week Archives
January 2001
January 1
Our tendency to focus on outcome...also narrows our self-image. When
we envy other people's assets, accomplishments or characteristics,
it is often because we are making a faulty comparison. We may be
looking at the results of their efforts rather than at the process
they went through on the way. For example, imagine that while talking
to a professor in her office, you hear her use a word that you do
not understand. You may feel intimidated and stupid. Now imagine
that the same professor is sitting at her desk with an open dictionary.
You would probably conclude that she knew that strange word because
she spends time looking up words, finding them in books she reads,
or learning them in some other straightforward way. You, too, could
look up words, if you wanted to. Keeping an eye on process, on the
steps anyone must take to become expert, keeps us from disparaging
ourselves.
- Ellen J. Langer
Mindfulness (p. 46)
January 8
The inner self requires ample time to pass through each of the steps
it must take to assimilate experiences, memories, former irritations or
addictions into the not-yet formed behavior. Rushing headlong into some
pre-conceived, intellectual notion of what we "should" be not only implies
disrespect for the self, but we then wrongly assume to know what we need
better than the inner self.... Perhaps we can better know our life's direction
if we become sensitive to our dreams, slips of tongue, incomprehensible
inner images and intuitional leanings than if we assume an "expert's"
idea of what is right is right for us. Whatever our growth path, if one
of our goals is to integrate our personality so that its many sub-selves
start to work together as a whole, it surely will take time -- and a different
amount of time for different people.
- Marsha Sinetar
Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow (p. 49)
January 15
A very different...explanation for why we become mindless [acting without
thinking based on old assumptions] has to do with our early education.
From kindergarten on, the focus of schooling is usualy on goals rather
than on the process by which they are achieved. This single-minded pursuit
of one outcome or another, from tying shoelaces to getting into Harvard,
makes it difficult to have a mindful attitude about life.
When children start a new activity with an outcome orientation, questions
of "Can I?" or "What if I can't do it?" are likely to predominate, creating
an anxious preoccupation with success or failure rather than drawing on
the child's natural, exuberant desire to explore....
Throughout our lives, an outcome orientation in social situations can
induce mindlessness. If we think we know how to handle a situation, we
don't feel a need to pay attention. If we respond to the situation as
very familiar (a result, for example, of overlearning), we notice only
the minimal cues necessary to carry out the proper scenario. If, on the
other hand, the situation is strange, we might be so preoccupied with
thoughts of failure ("What if I make a fool of myself?") that we miss
nuances of our own and other' behavior. If this sense, we are mindless
with respect to the immediate situation, although we may be thinking quite
actively about outcome-related issues.
In contrast, a process orientation...asks "How do I do it?" instead
of "Can I do it?" and thus directs attention toward defining the steps
that are necessary on the way. This orientation can be characterized in
terms of the guiding principle that there are no failures, only ineffective
solutions.
- Ellen J. Langer
Mindlessness (pp. 33-34)
Comment: To do something, you must first be something
In 1972, I was coaching distance runners on the national track and
cross-country teams for Tunisia, in North Africa. I was able to work with
several world-class runners who were involved in a international competitions,
including the 1971 Mediterranean Games and the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich,
Germany.
Over the two years I coached in Tunisia, I became more and more aware
that we really can't control our future; in fact, we shouldn't try to
control it for reasons too detailed to explore here. I also realized something
which I had known all along unconsciously: if you want to run a world-class
time, you first had to become a world-class runner. In other words, you
don't focus on the outcome (a four-minute mile, for example), but on the
process of becoming the kind of person who can run a four minute mile.
Then the four-minute mile "happens" because it is the natural expression
of who you are.
In our culture, and especially in our schools, we focus too much on
the outcome and not enough on the process, the being and becoming. This
is backward thinking. It is like focusing on the apples without paying
attention to the tree. If you want the best apples you can get from a
tree, you take care of it. You nurture the it into a tree that produces
the best apples of which it is capable as an expression of what it is,
as the natural unfoldment of its nature.
In schools we focus too much on the apples. Outcome based thinking
emphasizes passing the test or getting the grade, rather than on the process
of learning and growing. In terms of the Heroic Journey, when we focus
on the outcome, we are assuming that it is the journey is unimportant.
We are creating the impression that we can have the greater skill or the
deeper understanding without going through the process of change. This
is totally backward. The journey is everything. It is the journey which
changes us, helps us to adapt, to assimilate, to understand, to grow.
In the journey, process is all there is. The "reward" or outcome is the
"fruit" of a changed or enlarged self. Ironically, if the journey is true,
when we finish it, we don't care about the reward because, in becoming
the person to whom it happens naturally, we have transcended it.
In addition, when we focus on the outcome rather than the process,
we open the door to shortcuts. When the end is the goal, it's permissible
to cheat on the test because the "A" is what is important, not the learning.
It is permissible to copy or to do whatever is necessary to achieve the
outcome. Unfortunately, we've become so steeped in this thinking, process-oriented
thinking seems foolish. When I talk with my students about this, they
often look at me as if I were deluded or naive.
Outcome thinking also creates other negative mindsets. For example,
when we focus on outcome, we may look at a successful person, and say
to ourselves, "I wish I could do that." We look at the performance as
if it were isolated, as if it sprang into being fully grown. We neglect
the long journey the person took to get there. For example, recently,
cable television broadcast a documentary called "Endurance," a program
about the great Ethiopian distance runner and Olympic champion Haile Gebrselassie.
I have seen Gebrselassie on television and was absolutely amazed at his
strength, speed and endurance. Even though I have coached Olympic distance
runners, I caught myself thinking, "He had to have been born with the
physiology to run like that."
I watched the documentary, and when it was over, I realized what I
had already known. Gebrselassie had an incredible physiology, but he had
worked incredibly hard to be able to run the way he runs. I also realized
two other things. First, Gebrselassie was human -- a gifted runner, certainly,
but still a human. Second, after watching the story of his process of
becoming a great distance runner, I thought, "That's how it is done."
I became less awed by what he had done (although his accomplishments are
unparalleled) and more focused on what he had done to get there. Granted,
he did have the physical equipment, but he honed that equipment with years
and years of hard work. If I were still a young runner, I would be greatly
encouraged because the question shifts from the outcome-oriented "Can
it be done?" to the process-oriented "How do I do it?" When we focus on
the process, life seems much more do-able.
I have a young man in my ninth grade English class. Yesterday I heard
him telling his friend that he would have a 4.0 this semester. He is actually
failing my class, but somehow it didn't register on him. I went back later
in the period and showed him his grade, reminded him that he had not done
a major project, that he had no points in independent reading, and
that he had not done well on the tests. He seemed oblivious. Somehow he
was thinking that if he just wanted the "A", he would get it. He was focused
on the outcome, rather than on becoming the kind of person who would achieve
that outcome. When was the last time you heard a student say, "I want
to become the kind of person who would earn an A in this class," rather
than saying that he or she wants/needs the grade?
But I can't blame students for that type of thinking. School, parents,
the media -- everyone focuses on the outcome and, too often, the instant
fix. The recent growth in high-stakes testing is yet another expensive
result of this backward thinking. The idea is that by focusing on outcome,
on standards, we can somehow control the innately human process of learning.
Just the opposite is true. In California, fore example, the new "Exit"
exam required for high school graduation has not stimulated teachers to
teach better or students to look deeper into their own nature and grow.
It has caused us to restructure our curriculum to match the test. We now
have a pacing calendar to be sure that we have covered all of the material
that will be on the test. Once again, we are focusing on the the outcome,
not the process.
Process thinking is Journey thinking. It focuses on growing rather
than having. Until we change the focus on schools from outcome to process,
we can impose all of the tests we want, spend all the money we want, or
increase the length of the school year as much as we want, and it won't
make much difference (except that testing companies will get richer and
schools will get poorer). Honestly, it is sad that we are still living
under the thumb of mechanistic thought, of the "clockwork" universe, where
students are products produced through assembly line education. It's a
case of product, not process, and it's a dead-end street.
- Reg Harris
Comments?
January 22
But myths are means to discovery. They are a progressive revealing
of structure in our relation to nature and to our own existence. Myths
are educative -- "e-ducatio." By drawing out inner reality they enable
the person to experince greater reality in the outside world.
We now emphasize the side that is generally overlooked, that these
myths discover for us a new reality as well. They are roads to universals
beyond one's concrete experience. It is only on the basis of such a faith
that the individual can genuinely accept and overcome earlier infantile
deprivations without continuing to harbor resentment all through one's
life. In this sense myth helps us accept our past, and we then find it
opens before us our future.
- Rollo May
The Cry for Myth (p. 87)
January 29
It seems that most folks most of the time simply get through life.
Their days are spent merely passing time until the weekends or until their
vacations. They mark a few outstanding events�graduation day, the trip
to Hawaii, the day they got married, the birth of a child �but the rest
of life is unremarkable and meaningless for them. How much richer, it
seems to me, to be able to think of every �now� as important, every act
as rich with meaning. Such an attitude allows one to live life instead
of merely enduring it.
In the Moritist context, every act provides the opportunity for purposeful
accomplishment and personal growth. Every act can involve moments of directed
attention. Pouring a cup of coffee, scrub-bing the bathtub, writing a
thank-you note, arranging the pages of a photo album, signaling a left
turn, setting an alarm, kissing a loved one�all these activities can be,
should be, carried out with the clear focus and scrupulous care they deserve.
All we have is that flow of attention. If we do not use it with awareness,
if we do not recognize its pervasive nature, then we misuse the only treasure
we have�we lose life.
- David Reynolds
Playing Ball on Running Water (p. 18)
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