Delay or deny Habit — This is free will, in fact.
Think For Yourself, Part 1 of 4
Develop Your Free Will Confidence
In other words, develop the power and confidence to think before you act.
Some call this power SELF-CONTROL. And it is. Free will is not the power to choose freely, but instead, it is the power to reject habit. After that, YOU LEARN. With new understandings, you may make different decisions.
Delay or Deny Habit (Free Will, in fact)
Contents
The Will Smith slap was an unthinking “habit.” It was produced by what he thought he already knew. He acted in a way he thought was appropriate for the moment. Only it wasn’t.
Introduction
Most (99%) of your daily actions are habits. If you did not engage in a process to learn something entirely new, then your actions or thoughts were already habits. Your behavior/thoughts are in your head. Even math and logic are habits. I am sorry. But this is true.
Habits are the problem. We tend to do what we have always done.
So stop. Think for yourself. The following is the first step.
The Four Thinking Steps
This is part 1 of 4
The Genius-Producing Steps
INTRODUCTION: The danger in not thinking for yourself.
- Delay or deny Habit — This is free will, in fact.
This post. - Foster Curiosity — The mind’s reward for pursuing understanding.
Coming soon. - Build Conceptual Models — As opposed to perceptual models.
Coming soon. - Diversify Your Thinking — Expand your mind’s usable space.
Coming soon.
The Exercise / Task
SPECIFICALLY, if you find that your mind is noisy or that you suffer from overwhelming anxiety, depression, poor sleep, or poor focus, then:
Meditate, but this is only the first step in thinking.
Meditation is simply the denial of habit. Referring to Figure 1 below. Meditation is a practice that moves the mind away from observing and reacting to reality, and the habits reality provokes, to observe one’s breathing. This, in effect, denies habits by redirecting consciousness. Meditation likely helps, but it is not a stable mental state. Ideally, the brain must learn to spend its idle time in the prefrontal cortex with reason and other advanced thinking modes.
For meditation, I’ll redirect you to meditation.org for techniques and information.
Free Will Generally Applied
When possible, and it is almost always possible, delay decision-making for as long as possible. Wait to make the decision until you can wait no longer. This is free will. Then, use the time created in an attempt to disprove the “truth” of your favored approach. This is reason.
An old friend of mine used to coach batters of our softball team to ignore the first pitch when they were up to bat. The advice is brilliant, really. If you can’t ignore a pitch, you do not have the power to wait for the best pitch. The first step at bat is to ignore the first pitch–no matter what. This is akin to meditation above. In time, the batter enables their mind to, eventually, better evaluate the incoming pitch. This is reason.
The science of free will
(1) Do not decide questions/issues until you must;
(2) Use your undecided thinking time disproving.
Make these your mental habits.