II. Discipline

   MY hope is that the preceding section motivates you into assuming a more CARING attitude and outlook toward the world around you. As simple as it may seem, that is the first step needed toward effectively avoiding mental error. Once you become a more CARING individual, you become more ACTIVELY involved in guarding yourself and others from possible, overlooked trepidations.

...want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge.... Trusting too much to other’s care is the ruin of many. — Benjamin Franklin, The Way To Wealth, 1733.

   The next step is to learn what to focus your attention on so that you may more quickly and effectively guard yourself and others from making those errors whose subsequent outcomes you may later regret. This is where some self-discipline may be needed on your part as you effectively override and contradict your own innate feelings and instincts, which you may or may not have become aware of before. Disciplining yourself into thinking along these lines may actually be a bit stressful at first, but that eventually wanes as you exercise your "mental muscle" repeatedly over time.

    A. Disciplining Yourself To Care

    As a professional, there are some guides that you should become familiar with to help you maintain this attitude. The bulk of this information has been included at Morality In Decision Making, and in that section of this web site provided to us by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, at Ethical Decision. Additionally, however, consider the following outline.

1. Your Care In The Present
   1. Empathy: Allow for all the honest possibilities before despising or accusing. Imagine possibilities that may be setting up the observed behavior:
      
      1. Normal Behavior:
         1. Just lacks training or guidance?
         2. Bad role models? teachers? parents?
         3. Influenced by bad environmental factors?
         4. Socio-economic factors?
      2. Manipulated Possibility:
            What if this individual is a bona fide pawn, manipulated by others?
            Remember also to leave all accusations to the police: They have all the necessary means to figure out what is precisely going on.
   2. Helping Others
      1. Giving:
            Sometimes, DOING FOR OTHERS must achieve greater priority over all our other goals or aspirations. And then ...
            Sometimes must we actually hurt ourselves in the way of GIVING or HELPING or doing what's BEST or doing what's RIGHT.
            Though, practically, you may not be able to help everyone all of the time, you should always feel that propensity within you.
      2. Monitoring:
            What should you do to ascertain that everyone is carrying out their required activities as anticipated? Sometimes, a watchful eye by someone who cares is all that is needed to prevent accidents.
2. Your Past Actions — Responsibility
      You're only human. You're gonna' make mistakes. Don't pretend otherwise. Openly acknowledge your own mistakes, accept responsibility for them, amend the resulting unanticipated consequences as best you can ... AND learn from the experiences.
3. Your Future — Preparation
      Think in advance about where your decisions may lead. What should you do now to prevent something unwanted from happening later? Any possible research to look into? Brainstorming sessions? Training seminars? And so on.

   Finally, remember that the person who TRULY cares about reaching a particular goal will brainstorm and try every possible avenue, every potentially fruitful direction, to make it work. Sometimes you may need to discipline yourself into thinking in this way. Remember these old — but true — words of advice:

"Try, try, try again,” or "Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

    B. Disciplining Yourself To Avoid Error

   OKAY! So, now that you know how to CARE ... you certainly care about avoiding ALL potential for mental error. It is when we begin memorizing guidelines and disciplining ourselves to think apart from our natural tendencies that our thinking begins to seem more "mechanical.” The above outline provides one part of this "machinery." Here's the rest ...

   Remember that, to successfully avoid ALL potential for mental error, you must ...

• be wary of the potential for distortion and bias served by your personal memories, experiences and emotions; and

• learn to focus your imaginative and analytical capabilities completely toward the decision you are making.

   So, you need to learn to discipline your thinking so that ...

• Care replaces your inherent selfish, self-centered and lazy instincts AND motivates you to GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME;
• Verifiable Fact and Brainstorming substitute belief and misperception AND keep you searching for those rare possibilities or special cases which you may be overlooking;
• Up-to-date Information keeps you informed of all the latest developments;
• Advance Preparation keeps you safe, observant, on-guard AND busy at planning ahead for whatever may head your way.
• Prioritizing keeps your most-valued goals in focus;
• Analysis provides a myriad of alternative perspectives and explanations;
• Imagining Past Precedents and Future Consequences/Implications substitute thinking that confines itself to the Present; and
• Open-mindedness keeps you receptive to new, creative possibilities: Nothing is rejected for being "strange" or "unpopular" without ample demonstration/justification.

III. Advance Preparation

He who learns first, advances first.
But also...
She who knows more, advances more wisely.
And then...
Those who have imagined and prepared in advance will already be there.
   —   author unknown

   Those few lines conveniently sum up everything needing to be said in this section. You must stay abreast of all the latest developments not only pertinent to your own particular job or duties, but also those that may impact your realm from some surprise or unexpected direction. Additionally, imagining a myriad of possible responses to a myriad of possible future developments will help you remain prepared for whatever may head your way.

   Sound simple? Well, it is. But we are human, and it is the human tendency to forget and overlook things at times, especially when emotions are high and/or time is short. When we find ourselves rushed into making swift decisions, we usually respond according to the most appropriate action that first comes to mind, without exerting much thought about all subsequent outcomes or criticisms, or about what someone else may have done before. Moreover, our selfish and stupid instincts can interfere with our thinking at times and lead us to some, well, selfish and stupid decisions. ADVANCE PREPARATION can go a long way toward preventing our

• human emotions (see Beliefs & Fallacies: Emotional Biases),
• restricted imaginary capabilities (see Decision: Recognizing ALL Variables that May Influence the Situation) and/or
• simple forgetfulness

from leading us down a wrong mental road during those trying times. We must remember to "rack our minds" and imagine every subtle possibility in advance, allowing NO variable of potential influence to become either ignored or overlooked. Don't just sit, wait and assume things will always work out as you expect: "What did I overlook, ignore, forget about, fail to consider or check into?” Rather than finding yourself later on saying, "I should have ...,” or "I could have ...,” or "I would have ...,” exert the necessary effort now to prepare for those trying times later. Planning ahead and imagining possibilities that may later need to be addressed swiftly, before they occur is something that we must learn to take the time to do, before a swift decision later may lead to some unwanted outcome that we had not previously anticipated. A little foresight can go a long way toward preventing the wrong chain events from occurring at the wrong time.

   Remember these adages:

"A stitch, in time, is worth nine,” or

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

   Read. Research. Learn. Remain apprised. But, above all, plan ahead, AND plan thoroughly. All your planning may be in vain, but if any problems should ever come your way, you (or those after you!) will at least have a framework already worked out for quickly and appropriately responding.

All opinions expressed in this web site, unless otherwise noted, are my own, Michael Gaspard. If you notice any errors or have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know by e-mailing webmaster@mdpme.com. Thank you!

This web page was last updated on Monday, February 2, 2004.
http://www.mdpme.com/reason3.htm

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