Problem Solving blog

I was reading the bible the other day when something I hadn’t seen before smacked me in the chops. Jesus was talking to his disciples about unforgiveness in Luke 17. Jesus told them that if a brother comes to you seven times in day and sins against then asks for forgiveness you should forgive him each time. The disciples were amazed by this because they asked for more faith. What Jesus says next always bothered me. He said that if you had faith as a mustard seed you would say to this mulberry tree be uprooted and be planted in the sea and it would obey you.  I had glossed over that many times.  This time however I read the bit about being a servant underneath and was even more perplexed.  Then it struck me.  Jesus is saying that faith (or an expressed belief) needs to be replaced by another expressed belief in order for the previous belief to be ‘removed and cast into the sea.  I would one belief dissolves the other and removes it’s potency because it stops the previous one from existing.   That is, you get rid of old beliefs by replacing them with new ones that are more powerful.

As you find ways to remove old beliefs about your life, circumstances and so on… it’s like the old beliefs were never there.  Indeed you can make yourself believe anything if you lie to yourself often enough can’t you?  You can change memories, change habits, change how you feel… by having your beliefs changed.  Yet the how is the part we want isn’t it?  How and/or can we change our beliefs?  What I think Jesus might have been saying was this: You can forgive if you believe you can because that belief will enable you to act.  Love is a powerful emotion… use it!  Use what you have and you might just be surprised at what follows.  

I have made a new page up the top right hand corner called services. At this stage it’s an on-going project. But there is one service available. I have a basic forum with on-going seminars and tools for $49.95 a month. You can access these via the link in the services tab. If you want to learn more about it click here.

The reason for this is simple… I am dedicated to reaching my full potential. I do not want to die with the music still in me… I am 2/3 of the way towards reaching a place where I believe I am doing what I can do to put my stuff out there… the rest, as they say, is up to God.

I hope you check it out… any questions just ask me.

Recently I set my policy students the task of picking five ways of thinking to structure an ill-defined policy. One of those ways I chose was the ‘picturing’ technique which visualises a problem and it’s relationships. In essence, nobody really picked that option out of 38 students. In a more recent event I asked one of my students to think systemically about a problem. She said she couldn’t do it because it took her out of comfort zone. I had never been confronted with a problem like this before so I was unsure how to handle it. I showed her a basic mapping technique (concept mapping) and she was ok after that. It did get me thinking though… why do people have a hard time visualising concepts?

My argument: people have abandoned pictures in western education

I have watched my eldest daughter draw inventive pictures and create masterpieces only to have that ‘educated’ out of her by the end of grade three. When asked to visualise anything she really struggles now compared with several years ago. Further, the inability of people to apply their imagination to problems, offering new and innovative solutions is somehow linked to the ability to picture things.  During school I felt myself drifting out the window imagining something else while the teacher was talking. I often remember being interrupted by the teacher who would say something like, “Luke stop daydreaming and focus on your work.” Ahh but what great adventures I had staring out that window. I fought crime, solved problems and created new and better realities. Alas, it’s take then best part of 25 years to realise that those methods instilled in me at such an early age have limited my capacity to imagine.

Restoring the capacity to imagine

Reading dulls the mind. Already by now most of you have stopped at this point in the article. Which makes that last sentence somewhat redundant. Let me give you a little test. Imagine you are sitting as a passenger in your car. Can you see the glove box? What about the windscreen? What’s happening as you imagine yourself in this setting? If you can’t do this then you were like me you had lost your capacity to imagine. Here’s a snippet from something I wrote (from this site which I never get time to update) a while ago:

Eunice looked into the small room where her sleeping daughter lay tightly strapped to a bed. Given that she had lost her husband to schizophrenia, she wondered why she hadn’t seen this coming.

Now you are doing it. You are seeing a girl strapped to a bed. You are picturing a mental ward… whatever YOUR perception of that is likely to be. You have seen clothing, pictures on the wall, the room and so on. Why can’t we apply this same thinking to our problems, businesses or other stuff?

My challenge to you

I want you to do something.  I am going to do this too so don’t worry.  Woah man… no it’s not like that.  Take a specific area of your life and begin to apply your imagination to it.  See what you come up with.  Let me finish with the story I began at the start of this post.  The student in question still looked a little puzzled after I used the concept mapping technique so I asked her to use her imagination.  I asked her to think what would it be like IF she could think this way?  How would it feel? What connections would you see?  What steps would you take?  This got her passed the “can’t do it bit” and she actually did a very good job in the end.

The imagination is probably the most underrated part of our brains.  It can take us places our logic can only follow… it can picture for us new realities and if you believe in positive (intentional) spirituality it can even effect reality!  So why not give it a go and let me know how it works out?

In life sometimes you find yourself facing failure. You may have tried your hand at something, had really high expectations and it just didn’t work out. It may be a marriage, a job, a business venture a partnership … you just never know what life can throw you sometimes. You can however begin to move forward out of the darkness by making some tough choices.

If nobody cares about you… care about yourself

Hating yourself for your mistakes is not helpful. As a matter of fact it’s dangerous. When you decide to take responsibility for your failure and own up to it… then yes it’s a time for understanding the failure and dealing with it. However, you don’t dwell on it and remind yourself of it. When through poor decisions or just bad circumstances you wind up in a ditch the first thing you must do is recognise that you may have been a dumbass but that does not exclude you from the race. It doesn’t mean you will win next time either. What it does mean is that you have to accept the fact that you tried. As I have said before… the problem with society is that we place such a high premium on success that we deride people who fail. As I have heard Edward Debono say, “There is no word in the English language which says perfectly acceptable venture that for reasons outside of the control of the individual went poorly!” Accept that you made a mistake but don’t hate yourself for it. Learn the day to day activity of forgiving yourself by remembering all the good things you have.

Look for the good in your situation

I know of people who have had kidney failure and lost everything during the recovery process. People have lost children and spouses. Is there any good to be gained out of that horrible situation? No there isn’t. What you can do over time however is begin to build an inner picture of your life that is worth something. When that cloud begins to settle in, why not think about the wonderful times you had with this person. When people die we miss them terribly and this is good because we should. However, as our heart begins to heal we need to fill our lives once again with positives and focus on what’s good. You may be having problems with money… you may not have a home. Are you breathing with the aid of a machine? How about your legs… do they still work? When you begin to focus on what you have instead of what you have lost… the good things you carry around with you that you take for granted have a new weight of importance.

Darkness breeds even more darkness

When the cloud settles in you begin to think a certain way. After a little while you begin to act that way. Soon, you are saying and doing things you didn’t think you would ever do. Darkness comes to all of us in one way or another. If we allow it to settle in our soul it will make a castle that fortifies and begins to rule our lives. We cannot be like that can we? Dark thoughts are the root system of the tree that poisons your soul. You must take those thoughts captive and replace them with more positive intentions. Easier said than done? Yes in the beginning. However, as you begin to practice you will find it easier. It’s so easy to be a critic. To pick on the efforts of others and drag them down. The internet is rife with examples of people picking on others from the safe proximity of the screenface (Thanks Alison ). What’s hard is to encourage people, to set them on their way and be a light to them.

Tragedy comes to all of us at some point. We should feel the pain of it and yes it should effect us. If it doesn’t then we are not humans. It’s what we do about that pain over time that counts. It’s the day to day thinking and acting that helps us to be what we eventually become. Remember, dark clouds are for a season, yet when the rain passes they disappear. Don’t let the dark clouds hang around you … for too long.

One of the most horrible things I can think of … is persecution. It happens to all of us. The other day an unnamed relative made light of my current occupation not so gently referring to it as waste of time. I have heard of all this crap before so I let it go through to the keeper (not before swearing and beating my fists in the air). It did however get me thinking about how much society hates different people and how much they persecute you for it. So here is my list of seven things that I have been persecuted for.

7. Shameless self-promotion

Just yesterday some jerk from Sweden left a scathing review of my stumbling abilities on stumbleupon. My initial reaction was shock but as I brushed aside this angry geek’s masterful use of the “C” word I noticed the a line that read “stumbleupon is not a place for you to market yourself” or something like that. The thing is I do stumble my own work. Yes this is a shameful admission! However, I have found I have gotten some good readers this way, met some interesting people and most importantly increased the amount of readers I have. My old man says is this way, ‘if you don’t toot your own horn nobody will do it for you.’

6. Having a large head!

Once of the most consistent taunts during my ill-fated schooling years was the merciless jesting at the size of my head. This persecution went on for years it was horrible. If you ever see anyone with a big head don’t call them ‘Humphrey head’ or ‘Remax’. It’s not exactly the nicest way to make friends that’s for damned sure.

5. Being a day dreamer

I was always that kid looking out the window during class. I can’t tell you the amount of times I was made fun of for being a million miles away. I can’t help it, I am a day dreamer. I was always looking out the window thinking about what might happen if the school room was invaded by terrorists or if the teacher spontaneously combusted. That’s the kind of persecution that has destroyed western society and put in it’s place a giant superstructure of logical moosh.

4. Being fat

All fat people can relate to this one. Being persecuted for being ‘tubby’ is demeaning. There have been many times that I have been made fun of because I was a little on the ‘chunky side’. Hey I like to eat… what can I say?

3. Being an ideas engineer (academic)

In my job I deal with the business of ideas. Understanding them, applying them, learning from them and developing them. Why do I put myself through this thankless task? Why do I get underpaid to do this? Because I love ideas. I love finding out new stuff and sharing it with people. If you asked me to manage a business, I would probably do a good job. However, if you asked me to find out something of interest and report back… I would be much happier. My idea of a good time is reading the latest book in my area of interest and building models from the insights I get. Some people, God bless their hearts, simply don’t think this pursuit is worth it. I have relatives say to me that such a pursuit is a waste of time. I have big business boys calling what I do a ‘wank’. I don’t care. One of my favourite things in the world is to go to the Griffith University library and find a book I am interested in and read it. I have read everything from books on Google to Roy Bhaskar’s ‘the Possibility of Naturalism’. I recently spent three days in a conference listening to that man use incomprehensible language to describe reality and I thought it was money well spent. Why? That’s something you can’t understand unless you are that way inclined.

2. Setting unrealistic goals

History has shown that people with big dreams don’t always make it. This is not one of your hard and fast rules that you bend to suit your own means. However, have you noticed JUST how many people dream big and get big? I am always being persecuted for believing (intentionally) for great things to happen. I usually don’t wait for a time that’s ‘convenient’ though lately I have a growing apathy… but I digress. People have called me all kinds of names and pointed fingers because I like to dream. Do I have dreams I haven’t met… of course! Have I met some along the way… yes… hence the new title before ‘Luke’. The motto is everybody is ant until they do something to break away from the comfortable nests we build. As Everlast might say, ‘You don’t know what it’s like… to walk a mile in my shoes.’ Try it and you might just make a difference.

1. Being a Christian

In this tolerant society we live in I have experienced more intolerance because of my faith than for anything else. I have been told I was responsible for world wars, a co-conspirator against the Arabs with the Jews, in bed with the Nazis, called an idiot, shouted at, belittled, made fun of, humiliated, been cursed by a Satanist, been given books, and so on because I am a Christian. I am not an aggressive Christian by any stretch of the imagination but I don’t think I should apologise for my faith either. Yet, more than any other thing… when people find this out about me they generally lose respect for me. Do I care? No. Why not? What’s the point? People will be people and if you even show the slightest hint of difference they will smack you back in line.

Let me conclude my persecution post by asking you a favour. Learn to appreciate difference. Stop being the jackass that points out why people are different. You are different! I want you to stop it. STOP IT! Okay good. When you have come back and read some more. :D. There you have it more shameless self promotion… I might stumble this… :D.

The other day I was involved in something that was quite useful. In short it was a bunch of people sitting around talking about stuff. It was fun LOL. We got to talking about problem solving and one of the people sitting their said to me that they thought lateral thinking was not moving to a new position because it actually stayed inside the box… it just moved sideways. I think previously (hat tip to Alan) I may have said it was more about moving out of the box entirely. I now think this latter interpretation is more than accurate!

How do you perspective shift?

Think back to something horrible that happened to you years ago. Say you were involved in a car accident and you hurt yourself pretty badly. Say you had a bad teacher and he said you were worthless. Those words or that incident changed your perspective. It made you realise a different world. One that you had no access to up to that point. Now you think different, you feel different, you talk different and so on. Your perspective has changed. So how do you change it back? You need to find a new perspective that dissolves the old. You need to find a new image of the situation in which you take back the power and confidence that was stolen from you. This is too much information for this short note but I will be covering this again on this blog at a later date.

What’s your perspective?

Your perspective is the view you hold on something… it produces thoughts. It’s the inner beliefs you have the shape the outgoing of your perceptions. How do you know what you believe? It’s the thing that ticks away inside of you… it’s the way you frame issues such as racism for example. How do you relate to the opposite sex? That’s a perspective.

Whatever your perspective is… you are tainted by it. Thanks for reading if you got this far.

Isn’t that great as I sit here typing this my house is overrun by mice.  On the upside at least I have something to blog about.  Yes my house has mice in it.  I will leave you with a classic line from Flying High (Airplane).

[turns to the camera after being dissed by Elaine]
Ted Striker: What a pisser!

*stolen from imdb.com