Habit 2 Part 2

ALTERNATIVE CENTERS

Each of us has a center, though we usually don’t recognize it as such. Neither do we recognize the all-encompassing effects of that center on every aspect of our lives.

Let’s briefly examine several centers or core paradigms people typically have for a better understanding of how they affect these four fundamental dimensions and, ultimately, the sum of life that flows from them.

SPOUSE CENTEREDNESS. Marriage can be the most intimate, the most satisfying, the most enduring, growth-producing of human relationships. It might seem natural and proper to be centered on one’s husband or wife.

But experience and observation tell a different story. Over the years, I have been involved in working with many troubled marriages, and I have observed a certain thread weaving itself through almost every spouse-centered relationship I have encountered. That thread is strong emotional dependence.

If our sense of emotional worth comes primarily from our marriage, then we become highly dependent upon that relationship. We become vulnerable to the moods and feelings, the behavior and treatment of our spouse, or to any external event that may impinge on the relationship—a new child, in-laws, economic setbacks, social successes, and so forth.

When responsibilities increase and stresses come in the marriage, we tend to revert to the scripts we were given as we were growing up. But so does our spouse. And those scripts are usually different. Different ways of handling financial, child discipline, or in-law issues come to the surface. When these deep-seated tendencies combine with the emotional dependency in the marriage, the spouse-centered relationship reveals all its vulnerability.

When we are dependent on the person with whom we are in conflict, both need and conflict are compounded. Love-hate over-reactions, fight-or-flight tendencies, withdrawal, aggressiveness, bitterness, resentment, and cold competition are some of the usual results. When these occur, we tend to fall even further back on background tendencies and habits in an effort to justify and defend our own behavior and we attack our spouse’s.

Inevitably, anytime we are too vulnerable we feel the need to protect ourselves from further wounds. So we resort to sarcasm, cutting humor, criticism—anything that will keep from exposing the tenderness within. Each partner tends to wait on the initiative of the other for love, only to be disappointed but also confirmed as to the rightness of the accusations made.

There is only phantom security in such a relationship when all appears to be going well. Guidance is based on the emotion of the moment. Wisdom and power are lost in the counterdependent negative interactions.

FAMILY CENTEREDNESS. Another common center is the family. This, too, may seem to be natural and proper. As an area of focus and deep investment, it provides great opportunities for deep relationships, for loving, for sharing, for much that makes life worthwhile. But as a center, it ironically destroys the very elements necessary to family success.

People who are family-centered get their sense of security or personal worth from the family tradition and culture or the family reputation. Thus, they become vulnerable to any changes in that tradition or culture and to any influences that would affect that reputation.

Family-centered parents do not have the emotional freedom, the power, to raise their children with their ultimate welfare truly in mind. If they derive their own security from the family, their need to be popular with their children may override the importance of a long-term investment in their children’s growth and development. Or they may be focused on the proper and correct behavior of the moment. Any behavior that they consider improper threatens their security. They become upset, guided by the emotions of the moment, spontaneously reacting to the immediate concern rather than the long-term growth and development of the child. They may yell or scream. They may overreact and punish out of bad temper. They tend to love their children conditionally, making them emotionally dependent or counterdependent and rebellious.

MONEY CENTEREDNESS. Another logical and extremely common center to people’s lives is making money. Economic security is basic to one’s opportunity to do much in any other dimension. In a hierarchy or continuum of needs, physical survival and financial security comes first. Other needs are not even activated until that basic need is satisfied, at least minimally.

Most of us face economic worries. Many forces in the wider culture can and do act upon our economic situation, causing or threatening such disruption that we often experience concern and worry that may not always rise to the conscious surface.

Sometimes there are apparently noble reasons given for making money, such as the desire to take care of one’s family. And these things are important. But to focus on money-making as a center will bring about its own undoing.

Consider again the four life-support factors—security, guidance, wisdom, and power. Suppose I derive much of my security from my employment or from my income or net worth. Since many factors affect these economic foundations, I become anxious and uneasy, protective and defensive, about anything that may affect them. When my sense of personal worth comes from my net worth, I am vulnerable to anything that will affect that net worth. But work and money, per se, provide no wisdom, no guidance, and only a limited degree of power and security. All it takes to show the limitations of a money center is a crisis in my life or in the life of a loved one.

Money-centered people often put aside family or other priorities, assuming everyone will understand that economic demands come first. I know one father who was leaving with his children for a promised trip to the circus when a phone call came for him to come to work instead. He declined. When his wife suggested that perhaps he should have gone to work, he responded, “The work will come again, but childhood won’t.” For the rest of their lives his children remembered this little act of priority setting, not only as an object lesson in their minds but as an expression of love in their hearts.

WORK CENTEREDNESS. Work-centered people may become “workaholics,” driving themselves to produce at the sacrifice of health, relationships, and other important areas of their lives. Their fundamental identity comes from their work—“I’m a doctor,” “I’m a writer,” “I’m an actor.” Because their identity and sense of self-worth are wrapped up in their work, their security is vulnerable to anything that happens to prevent them from continuing in it. Their guidance is a function of the demands of the work. Their wisdom and power come in the limited areas of their work, rendering them ineffective in other areas of life.

POSSESSION CENTEREDNESS. A driving force of many people is possessions—not only tangible, material possessions such as fashionable clothes, homes, cars, boats, and jewelry, but also the intangible possessions of fame, glory, or social prominence. Most of us are aware, through our own experience, how singularly flawed such a center is, simply because it can vanish rapidly and it is influenced by so many forces.

If my sense of security lies in my reputation or in the things I have, my life will be in a constant state of threat and jeopardy that these possessions may be lost or stolen or devalued. If I’m in the presence of someone of greater net worth or fame or status, I feel inferior. If I’m in the presence of someone of lesser net worth or fame or status, I feel superior. My sense of self-worth constantly fluctuates. I don’t have any sense of constancy or anchorage or persistent selfhood. I am constantly trying to protect and insure my assets, properties, securities, position, or reputation. We have all heard stories of people committing suicide after losing their fortunes in a significant stock decline or their fame in a political reversal.

PLEASURE CENTEREDNESS. Another common center, closely allied with possessions, is that of fun and pleasure. We live in a world where instant gratification is available and encouraged. Television and movies are major influences in increasing people’s expectations. They graphically portray what other people have and can do in living the life of ease and “fun.” But while the glitter of pleasure-centered life-styles is graphically portrayed, the natural result of such life-styles—the impact on the inner person, on productivity, on relationships—is seldom accurately seen.

Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation for the body and mind and can foster family and other relationships. But pleasure, per se, offers no deep, lasting satisfaction or sense of fulfillment. The pleasure-centered person, too soon bored with each succeeding level of “fun,” constantly cries for more and more. So the next new pleasure has to be bigger and better, more exciting, with a bigger “high.” A person in this state becomes almost entirely narcissistic, interpreting all of life in terms of the pleasure it provides to the self here and now.

Too many vacations that last too long, too many movies, too much TV, too much video game playing—too much undisciplined leisure time in which a person continually takes the course of least resistance gradually wastes a life. It ensures that a person’s capacities stay dormant, that talents remain undeveloped, that the mind and spirit become lethargic and that the heart is unfulfilled. Where is the security, the guidance, the wisdom, and the power? At the low end of the continuum, in the pleasure of a fleeting moment.

Malcolm Muggeridge writes in “A Twentieth-Century Testimony”:

When I look back on my life nowadays, which I sometimes do, what strikes me most forcibly about it is that what seemed at the time most significant and seductive, seems now most futile and absurd. For instance, success in all of its various guises; being known and being praised; ostensible pleasures, like acquiring money or seducing women, or traveling, going to and fro in the world and up and down in it like Satan, explaining and experiencing whatever Vanity Fair has to offer.

In retrospect, all these exercises in self-gratification seem pure fantasy, what Pascal called, “licking the earth.” FRIEND/ENEMY CENTEREDNESS. Young people are particularly, though certainly not exclusively, susceptible to becoming friend-centered. Acceptance and belonging to a peer group can become almost supremely important. The distorted and ever-changing social mirror becomes the source for the four life-support factors, creating a high degree of dependence on the fluctuating moods, feelings, attitudes, and behavior of others.

Friend centeredness can also focus exclusively on one person, taking on some of the dimensions of marriage. The emotional dependence on one individual, the escalating need/conflict spiral, and the resulting negative interactions can grow out of friend centeredness.

And what about putting an enemy at the center of one’s life? Most people would never think of it, and probably no one would ever do it consciously. Nevertheless, enemy centering is very common, particularly when there is frequent interaction between people who are in real conflict. When someone feels he has been unjustly dealt with by an emotionally or socially significant person, it is very easy for him to become preoccupied with the injustice and make the other person the center of his life. Rather than proactively leading his own life, the enemy-centered person is counterdependently reacting to the behavior and attitudes of a perceived enemy.

One friend of mine who taught at a university became very distraught because of the weaknesses of a particular administrator with whom he had a negative relationship. He allowed himself to think about the man constantly until eventually it became an obsession. It so preoccupied him that it affected the quality of his relationships with his family, his church, and his working associates. He finally came to the conclusion that he had to leave the university and accept a teaching appointment somewhere else.

“Wouldn’t you really prefer to teach at this university, if the man were not here?” I asked him.

“Yes, I would,” he responded. “But as long as he is here, then my staying is too disruptive to everything in life. I have to go.” “Why have you made this administrator the center of your life?” I asked him.

He was shocked by the question. He denied it. But I pointed out to him that he was allowing one individual and his weaknesses to distort his entire map of life, to undermine his faith and the quality of his relationships with his loved ones.

He finally admitted that this individual had had such an impact on him, but he denied that he himself had made all these choices. He attributed the responsibility for the unhappy situation to the administrator. He, himself, he declared, was not responsible.

As we talked, little by little, he came to realize that he was indeed responsible, but that because he did not handle this responsibility well, he was being irresponsible.

Many divorced people fall into a similar pattern. They are still consumed with anger and bitterness and self-justification regarding an ex-spouse. In a negative sense, psychologically they are still married—they each need the weaknesses of the former partner to justify their accusations.

Many “older” children go through life either secretly or openly hating their parents. They blame them for past abuses, neglect, or favoritism and they center their adult life on that hatred, living out the reactive, justifying script that accompanies it.

The individual who is friend- or enemy-centered has no intrinsic security. Feelings of self-worth are volatile, a function of the emotional state or behavior of other people. Guidance comes from the person’s perception of how others will respond, and wisdom is limited by the social lens or by an enemy-centered paranoia. The individual has no power. Other people are pulling the strings.

CHURCH CENTEREDNESS. I believe that almost anyone who is seriously involved in any church will recognize that churchgoing is not synonymous with personal spirituality. There are some people who get so busy in church worship and projects that they become insensitive to the pressing human needs that surround them, contradicting the very precepts they profess to believe deeply. There are others who attend church less frequently or not at all but whose attitudes and behavior reflect a more genuine centering in the principles of the basic Judeo-Christian ethic.

Having participated throughout my life in organized church and community service groups, I have found that attending church does not necessarily mean living the principles taught in those meetings. You can be active in a church but inactive in its gospel.

In the church-centered life, image or appearance can become a person’s dominant consideration, leading to hypocrisy that undermines personal security and intrinsic worth. Guidance comes from a social conscience, and the church-centered person tends to label others artificially in terms of “active,” “inactive,” “liberal,” “orthodox,” or “conservative.” Because the church is a formal organization made up of policies, programs, practices, and people, it cannot by itself give a person any deep, permanent security or sense of intrinsic worth. Living the principles taught by the church can do this, but the organization alone cannot.

Nor can the church give a person a constant sense of guidance. Church-centered people often tend to live in compartments, acting and thinking and feeling in certain ways on the Sabbath and in totally different ways on weekdays. Such a lack of wholeness or unity or integrity is a further threat to security, creating the need for increased labeling and self-justifying.

Seeing the church as an end rather than as a means to an end undermines a person’s wisdom and sense of balance. Although the church claims to teach people about the source of power, it does not claim to be that power itself. It claims to be one vehicle through which divine power can be channeled into man’s nature.

SELF-CENTEREDNESS. Perhaps the most common center today is the self. The most obvious form is selfishness, which violates the values of most people. But if we look closely at many of the popular approaches to growth and self-fulfillment, we often find self-centering at their core.

There is little security, guidance, wisdom, or power in the limited center of self. Like the Dead Sea in Palestine, it accepts but never gives. It becomes stagnant.

On the other hand, paying attention to the development of self in the greater perspective of improving one’s ability to serve, to produce, to contribute in meaningful ways, gives context for dramatic increase in the four life-support factors.

These are some of the more common centers from which people approach life. It is often much easier to recognize the center in someone else’s life than to see it in your own. You probably know someone who puts making money ahead of everything else. You probably know someone whose energy is devoted to justifying his or her position in an ongoing negative relationship. If you look, you can sometimes see beyond behavior into the center that creates it.

IDENTIFYING YOUR CENTER

But where do you stand? What is at the center of your own life? Sometimes that isn’t easy to see.

Perhaps the best way to identify your own center is to look closely at your life-support factors. If you can identify with one or more of the descriptions below, you can trace it back to the center from which it flows, a center which may be limiting your personal effectiveness.

More often than not, a person’s center is some combination of these and/or other centers. Most people are very much a function of a variety of influences that play upon their lives. Depending on external or internal conditions, one particular center may be activated until the underlying needs are satisfied. Then another center becomes the compelling force.

As a person fluctuates from one center to another, the resulting relativism is like roller coasting through life. One moment you’re high, the next moment you’re low, making efforts to compensate for one weakness by borrowing strength from another weakness. There is no consistent sense of direction, no persistent wisdom, no steady power supply or sense of personal, intrinsic worth and identity.

The ideal, of course, is to create one clear center from which you consistently derive a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power, empowering your proactivity and giving congruency and harmony to every part of your life.

A PRINCIPLE CENTER

By centering our lives on correct principles, we create a solid foundation for development of the four life-support factors.

Our security comes from knowing that, unlike other centers based on people or things which are subject to frequent and immediate change, correct principles do not change. We can depend on them.

Principles don’t react to anything. They don’t get mad and treat us differently. They won’t divorce us or run away with our best friend. They aren’t out to get us. They can’t pave our way with shortcuts and quick fixes. They don’t depend on the behavior of others, the environment, or the current fad for their validity. Principles don’t die. They aren’t here one day and gone the next. They can’t be destroyed by fire, earthquake or theft.

Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths, generic common denominators. They are tightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty, and strength through the fabric of life.

Even in the midst of people or circumstances that seem to ignore the principles, we can be secure in the knowledge that principles are bigger than people or circumstances, and that thousands of years of history have seen them triumph, time and time again. Even more important, we can be secure in the knowledge that we can validate them in our own lives, by our own experience.

Admittedly, we’re not omniscient. Our knowledge and understanding of correct principles is limited by our own lack of awareness of our true nature and the world around us and by the flood of trendy philosophies and theories that are not in harmony with correct principles. These ideas will have their season of acceptance, but, like many before them, they won’t endure because they’re built on false foundations.

We are limited, but we can push back the borders of our limitations. An understanding of the principle of our own growth enables us to search out correct principles with the confidence that the more we learn, the more clearly we can focus the lens through which we see the world. The principles don’t change; our understanding of them does.

The wisdom and guidance that accompany principle-centered living come from correct maps, from the way things really are, have been, and will be. Correct maps enable us to clearly see where we want to go and how to get there. We can make our decisions using the correct data that will make their implementation possible and meaningful.

The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people.

The only real limitation of power is the natural consequences of the principles themselves. We are free to choose our actions, based on our knowledge of correct principles, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Remember, “If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other.” Principles always have natural consequences attached to them. There are positive consequences when we live in harmony with the principles. There are negative consequences when we ignore them. But because these principles apply to everyone, whether or not they are aware, this limitation is universal. And the more we know of correct principles, the greater is our personal freedom to act wisely.

By centering our lives on timeless, unchanging principles, we create a fundamental paradigm of effective living. It is the center that puts all other centers in perspective.

Remember that your paradigm is the source from which your attitudes and behaviors flow. A paradigm is like a pair of glasses; it affects the way you see everything in your life. If you look at things through the paradigm of correct principles, what you see in life is dramatically different from what you see through any other centered paradigm.

I have included in the Appendix section of this book a detailed chart which shows how each center we’ve discussed might possibly affect the way you see everything else.2 But for a quick understanding of the difference your center makes, let’s look at just one example of a specific problem as seen through the different paradigms. As you read, try to put on each pair of glasses. Try to feel the response that flows from the different centers.

Suppose tonight you have invited your wife to go to a concert. You have the tickets; she’s excited about going. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon.

All of a sudden, your boss calls you into his office and says he needs your help through the evening to get ready for an important meeting at 9 A.M. tomorrow.

If you’re looking through spouse-centered or family-centered glasses, your main concern will be your wife. You may tell the boss you can’t stay and you take her to the concert in an effort to please her. You may feel you have to stay to protect your job, but you’ll do so grudgingly, anxious about her response, trying to justify your decision and protect yourself from her disappointment or anger.

If you’re looking through a money-centered lens, your main thought will be of the overtime you’ll get or the influence working late will have on a potential raise. You may call your wife and simply tell her you have to stay, assuming she’ll understand that economic demands come first.

If you’re work-centered, you may be thinking of the opportunity. You can learn more about the job. You can make some points with the boss and further your career. You may give yourself a pat on the back for putting in hours well beyond what is required, evidence of what a hard worker you are. Your wife should be proud of you!

If you’re possession-centered, you might be thinking of the things the overtime income could buy. Or you might consider what an asset to your reputation at the office it would be if you stayed. Everyone would hear tomorrow how noble, how sacrificing and dedicated you are.

If you’re pleasure-centered, you’ll probably can the work and go to the concert, even if your wife would be happy for you to work late. You deserve a night out!

If you’re friend-centered, your decision would be influenced by whether or not you had invited friends to attend the concert with you. Or whether your friends at work were going to stay late, too.

If you’re enemy-centered, you may stay late because you know it will give you a big edge over that person in the office who thinks he’s the company’s greatest asset. While he’s off having fun, you’ll be working and slaving, doing his work and yours, sacrificing your personal pleasure for the good of the company he can so blithely ignore.

If you’re church-centered, you might be influenced by plans other church members have to attend the concert, by whether or not any church members work at your office, or by the nature of the concert—Handel’s Messiah might rate higher priority than a rock concert. Your decision might also be affected by what you think a “good church member” would do and by whether you view the extra work as “service” or “seeking after material wealth.” If you’re self-centered, you’ll be focused on what will do you the most good. Would it be better for you to go out for the evening? Or would it be better for you to make a few points with the boss? How the different options affect you will be your main concern.

As we consider various ways of looking at a single event, is it any wonder that we have “young lady/old lady” perception problems in our interactions with each other? Can you see how fundamentally our centers affect us? Right down to our motivations, our daily decisions, our actions (or, in too many cases, our reactions), our interpretations of events? That’s why understanding your own center is so important. And if that center does not empower you as a proactive person, it becomes fundamental to your effectiveness to make the necessary paradigm shifts to create a center that will.

As a principle-centered person, you try to stand apart from the emotion of the situation and from other factors that would act on you, and evaluate the options. Looking at the balanced whole—the work needs, the family needs, other needs that may be involved and the possible implications of the various alternative decisions—you’ll try to come up with the best solution, taking all factors into consideration.

Whether you go to the concert or stay and work is really a small part of an effective decision. You might make the same choice with a number of other centers. But there are several important differences when you are coming from a principle-centered paradigm.

First, you are not being acted upon by other people or circumstances. You are proactively choosing what you determine to be the best alternative. You make your decision consciously and knowledgeably.

Second, you know your decision is most effective because it is based on principles with predictable long-term results.

Third, what you choose to do contributes to your ultimate values in life. Staying at work to get the edge on someone at the office is an entirely different evening in your life from staying because you value your boss’s effectiveness and you genuinely want to contribute to the company’s welfare. The experiences you have as you carry out your decisions take on quality and meaning in the context of your life as a whole.

Fourth, you can communicate to your wife and your boss within the strong networks you’ve created in your interdependent relationships. Because you are independent, you can be effectively interdependent. You might decide to delegate what is delegable and come in early the next morning to do the rest.

And finally, you’ll feel comfortable about your decision. Whatever you choose to do, you can focus on it and enjoy it.

As a principle-centered person, you see things differently. And because you see things differently, you think differently, you act differently. Because you have a high degree of security, guidance, wisdom, and power that flows from a solid, unchanging core, you have the foundation of a highly proactive and highly effective life.

WRITING AND USING A PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT

As we go deeply within ourselves, as we understand and realign our basic paradigms to bring them in harmony with correct principles, we create both an effective, empowering center and a clear lens through which we can see the world. We can then focus that lens on how we, as unique individuals, relate to that world.

Frankl says we detect rather than invent our missions in life. I like that choice of words. I think each of us has an internal monitor or sense, a conscience, that gives us an awareness of our own uniqueness and the singular contributions that we can make. In Frankl’s words, “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life…. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.” In seeking to give verbal expression to that uniqueness, we are again reminded of the fundamental importance of proactivity and of working within our Circle of Influence. To seek some abstract meaning to our lives out in our Circle of Concern is to abdicate our proactive responsibility, to place our own first creation in the hands of circumstance and other people.

Our meaning comes from within. Again, in the words of Frankl, “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” Personal responsibility, or proactivity, is fundamental to the first creation. Returning to the computer metaphor, Habit 1 says, “You are the programmer.” Habit 2, then, says, “Write the program.” Until you accept the idea that you are responsible, that you are the programmer, you won’t really invest in writing the program.

As proactive people, we can begin to give expression to what we want to be and to do in our lives. We can write a personal mission statement, a personal constitution.

A mission statement is not something you write overnight. It takes deep introspection, careful analysis, thoughtful expression, and often many rewrites to produce it in final form. It may take you several weeks or even months before you feel really comfortable with it, before you feel it is a complete and concise expression of your innermost values and directions. Even then, you will want to review it regularly and make minor changes as the years bring additional insights or changing circumstances.

But fundamentally, your mission statement becomes your constitution, the solid expression of your vision and values. It becomes the criterion by which you measure everything else in your life.

I recently finished reviewing my own mission statement, which I do fairly regularly. Sitting on the edge of a beach, alone, at the end of a bicycle ride, I took out my organizer and hammered it out. It took several hours, but I felt a sense of clarity, a sense of organization and commitment, a sense of exhilaration and freedom.

I find the process is as important as the product. Writing or reviewing a mission statement changes you because it forces you to think through your priorities deeply, carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs. As you do, other people begin to sense that you’re not being driven by everything that happens to you. You have a sense of mission about what you’re trying to do and you are excited about it.3 USING YOUR WHOLE BRAIN

Our self-awareness empowers us to examine our own thoughts. This is particularly helpful in creating a personal mission statement because the two unique human endowments that enable us to practice Habit 2—imagination and conscience—are primarily functions of the right side of the brain. Understanding how to tap into that right brain capacity greatly increases our first creation ability.

A great deal of research has been conducted for decades on what has come to be called brain dominance theory. The findings basically indicate that each hemisphere of the brain—left and right—tends to specialize in and preside over different functions, process different kinds of information, and deal with different kinds of problems.

Essentially, the left hemisphere is the more logical/verbal one and the right hemisphere the more intuitive, creative one. The left deals with words, the right with pictures; the left with parts and specifics, the right with wholes and the relationship between the parts. The left deals with analysis, which means to break apart; the right with synthesis, which means to put together. The left deals with sequential thinking; the right with simultaneous and holistic thinking. The left is time bound; the right is time free.

Although people use both sides of the brain, one side or the other generally tends to be dominant in each individual. Of course, the ideal would be to cultivate and develop the ability to have good crossover between both sides of the brain so that a person could first sense what the situation called for and then use the appropriate tool to deal with it. But people tend to stay in the “comfort zone” of their dominant hemisphere and process every situation according to either a right or left brain preference.

In the words of Abraham Maslow, “He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.” This is another factor that affects the “young lady/old lady” perception difference. Right brain and left brain people tend to look at things in different ways.

We live in a primarily left brain-dominant world, where words and measurement and logic are enthroned, and the more creative, intuitive, sensing, artistic aspect of our nature is often subordinated. Many of us find it more difficult to tap into our right brain capacity.

Admittedly this description is oversimplified and new studies will undoubtedly throw more light on brain functioning. But the point here is that we are capable of performing many different kinds of thought processes and we barely tap our potential. As we become aware of its different capacities, we can consciously use our minds to meet specific needs in more effective ways.