*(An excerpt from Joe’s new coming coming out later this year)
Extraordinary Wisdom – Part III
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein.
A Most Extraordinary Thinker
One of the people I admire most is Albert Einstein. Over the course of many years I have quoted him quite often. Partially, because of his ability to think in an incredibly balanced way. His always seemed to encompass both the analytical left and creative right hemispheres of the brain in an uncanny and extraordinary way.
After his death, at the age of 76, his brain was removed and studied. What they discovered was an enlarged area of the brain connecting the left and right hemispheres. It is referred to as the the corpus callosum. When this part of the brain function well, the brain can generate, retrieve, retain, and transform well-structured visual images. An enlarged corpus callosum also indicates an extremely high level of both verbal and social levels of reasoning (Emotional Intelligence).
He has been referred to as the master of both dualistic and non-dualistic thinking. His ability to understand, perceive, act, and know when to apply non-dualistic and or dualistic thinking was nothing less than extraordinary.
In order to create, imagine, and go beyond the limits of his thinking, he had to constantly push beyond what he knew to be true based simply on what he could see with his eyes. He opened up his mind to see beyond what was and into the possibility of what could be. Even though, it was unthinkable or unimaginable to others, especially his peers.
And in his quest to push the limits of his thinking and ours, he became one of the prominent thinkers of all time.
What does this mean for you and I and our thinking? As I have mentioned previously, it is your beliefs, which drive your behaviors, that are wielding the results you are achieving in your life.
Your collective beliefs are the foundation of your internal belief system. Which are all viewed through the lenses of your perception and dramatically influences how make your way in the world. Most of us formulate our belief systems over time, but at some point, we stop formulating or reformulating, and they become stagnant. We get comfortable in knowing what we know or believing what we believe. We walk through the world with our belief systems painted on a canvas we carry along side of us. As we walk we compare what we see out in the world to our internal beliefs and then judge the person, place, thing as good or bad, right or wrong, etc. Basically…dualistic thinking!
When we get stuck, hit-a roadblock, or are not achieving what we want, we apply our current level of thinking even harder or shut out other ideas and beliefs even more. We then wonder why nothing changes and we continue to achieve the same less-than-desired results.
In other words, we apply the same thinking (beliefs) to the situation that are created the problem in the first place. And then we don’t understand why nothing changes.
We fail to open ourselves up to thinking beyond what we currently believe, think, know, or imagine. It isn’t until the pain of change cracks us open and we then open ourselves to the possibility that their might be another way. Another approach, another mindset. Unfortunately, this is why in order for most people to change they must experience pain.
If you want to live an extraordinary life, you have to be willing go outside of your current thinking, your current beliefs and see the bigger picture.
Let’s look at this a different way.
Black, White, & Gray
Let’s say I stand you in a room made up of four identically size walls, each one measuring 10 by 25 feet or 250 sq. ft. per wall. Now lets say I hand you a gallon of white paint (one gallon covers 250 sq. ft.) and ask you to paint one wall. How much of that one wall could you cover in all-white? The answer is 250 sq. ft. Now I hand you a gallon of black paint and ask you to repeat the exercise on another wall. How much of that second wall could you cover in all-black? Yes, another 250 sq. ft. Now let’s say I hand you one gallon of black paint and one gallon of white paint and ask you to paint the remaining two walls one color. What would you do? You would have to mix the black and white paint together and paint it grey, then you could cover the remaining 500 square feet!
Get the point?
The picture you see, the area you can cover, expands immensely when you can see beyond black and white, beyond all good and all evil, all right and all wrong when you encompass a wider view or perspective.
Being an extraordinary thinker, means that we must transform our thinking. Examine our beliefs, and open ourselves up to the possibility that there is some truth beyond what we currently believe or think. It means we have to let go and stop wasting time labeling things and people and putting them in boxes so we can keep them outside and away from us just so we feel safe. It means we stop excluding others and look for ways that include them.
In means we stop living live in a constant state of fear, excommunicating or condemning anyone who doesn’t believe what we believe. We stop creating imaginary enemies and find a way that benefits all of us, not just me and my tribe.
Imagine if you could step back from your dualistic, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong thinking, and see the grayness of the issues you face. Imagine an inner world, where your ability to think and see beyond your challenges to a bigger, broader, more expansive way of thinking? Now imagine if everyone solved their problems in this manner of extraordinary thinking?
Imagine if this shift from away from dualistic thinking to a non-dualistic mindset was prevalent in Washington D.C., the United Nations, or the local church? Imagine if this non-dualistic thinking was the overall mindset on social media, the media, classrooms, the pulpit, the synagogue, the temple, or the mosque? Wouldn’t that be extraordinary?
This is what it means to be an extraordinary thinker. A homo sapien, a wise person.
And being an extraordinary thinker all begins when you take a deep long hard look inside…
Reflection:
Where in your life might you need to open up your thinking and see a bigger, broader, more gray perspective? What person in your life might you need to attempt to better understand and attempt see things from their perspective?
