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    2. Care - To Imagine.  See also Caring on page 4.

a. Care For Self

1. You don't want to make any mistakes because you don't want to get hurt.
   Imagine possible accidents before they occur. Imagine a possible security breach. Imagine the possibility of something else you may be overlooking!

2. You work hard to avoid compounding a mistake already made.
   Always must we realize that attempting to avert loss without consideration to RIGHT, Safety, Compassion or Responsibility inevitably leads to even greater loss than where we were initially headed before. Surely, you may be focusing all your attention on your potential loss in question so that the subsequent repercussions may be minimized as much as possible, but don't focus so sharply as to ignore the Right ways for doing things.

b. Care For Others

   Recognize that sometimes the "Right Decision" hurts. In fact, responsibility (embarrassment) and safety (costs associated with equipment, training and monitoring) demand so. The dictates of Righteousness and Virtue apply to all living beings — intelligent or not. We must always protect and care for all creatures, even if they haven't the capacity to supersede their own stupid or selfish motivations. Special cases of survival and self-defense excepted, All Conscious Life Deserves Protection. Conscious awareness is far too miraculous to abandon or waste. Lower intellectual level does not make one conscious creature less worthy of protection than another, though at times humans display extraordinary apathy toward other living creatures.

   Recognize too that only compassion may logically override considerations of safety — the mother who shields her baby from the passing blaze, or the father who rushes to shove a child out of harm's way. Our own human capacity for Selflessness, for helping and protecting others at the expense of self, can astound even our own selves at times.

c. Care To Consider ALL.  See also Decision.

   Imagine each subtle possibility — however rare or remote. Analyze the alternatives and consequences associated with each possibility, and prepare for them, rather than idly assuming they are just too unlikely to worry over. Prepare! Imagine possibilities! Overview is attained when we imagine and allow for ALL possibilities and prepare for them, rather than assuming that things will always work out as they always had before.

   Caring includes considerations of the non-living as much as the living. Everything you do in some way affects the living, but you must care about the abstract concepts as well as the real if you are to find a BEST decision and avoid all possible subsequent error. "What’s the best way to go about accomplishing this? Is there something I could possibly be overlooking? Might there be an even better way? Some new, creative way? Something unconventional? Something never hitherto discussed, trained or taught? Cheaper? More efficient? Safer? More compassionate? Somehow more helpful or conducive to success or accomplishment?”

   Because you Care about avoiding all potential for subsequent error, you will resort to INTENSE BRAINSTORMING to imagine possibilities, more possibilities perhaps than you ever thought imaginable. Do this once, and you will see what I mean. Your list of possibilities will grow and grow and grow. If you don't run out of ink on the first try, either you have selected an incredibly simple problem or you aren't trying to imagine EVERYTHING. (Yes, this is an exaggeration! But you should at least run out of paper. [Ha!])

   Thinking is Progress, but if you don't Care, you won't exert the needed mental effort to progress. Care is a requisite if you are to take the time to avoid all possible unwanted consequences to your decisions — physical as well as psychological, preparing for all potential attitudes, complaints, criticisms and other potential responses. If you don't Care, your decision-making style will most certainly suffer.

    3. Concern - To Counter Potential Misperception.  See also page 5.

   Caring also embodies concern. Checking to make sure that everything is progressing as you had previously hoped should become as much a part of your "error avoidance routine" as imagining what you might be overlooking. Don't blindly assume that others will flawlessly execute your orders if you don't bother checking to make sure they are. Perhaps they aren't as qualified as you thought they were. Or perhaps your earlier decision failed to take into account some stumbling block which now they must face ... on their own. Maybe they need you to help them through a new, unexpected scenario. Maybe you had better go check up on them just to make sure they are all okay. You aren't caring if you aren't concerned about the execution of the total plan as well as about all those who are doing the executing.

    4. Discipline - To Do More!  See also Self-Programming on page 4.

   If humans were perpetually caring and concerned creatures the world would have no problems! Oh well, we aren't. We are selfish, self-protective, self-centered. "What I want matters more than what you want! Me first!” So, we can't rely on our caring emotion to always steer us down the Right path. Sometimes there is no memory to get it going, and our reptilian, selfish motives might dominate our thinking. Our only recourse then is self-discipline. We can improve our Caring response! We can make it a more habitual response! But that takes discipline, time and repetition. If you find that your Caring emotion isn't as automatic as you would like it to be, imagine reasons to care! Do this over and over and over for years and years and years, and whah - la! You will suddenly find yourself Caring automatically more so than you ever did before!

   This is what separates the Professional Decision Maker from the novice or non-professional: Self-Discipline to Put Your Mind To Work to imagine and recognize subtle possibilities you may be overlooking so that NO ONE may subsequently suffer from some oversight on your part. Commit yourself to re-evaluating — double-checking and triple-checking — your planning in a dedicated effort to avoid the possibility that some subtle or rare possibility may have been overlooked. Work hard at eliminating the possibility for potential error. Allow for other perspectives, alternate paradigms and analytical techniques: You will find your own perceptions and beliefs to be WRONG sometimes.

    5. Consultation - Find The Most Competent Authority.  See also Information on page 5.

   It's impossible for you to know e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g! Don't even try. Just be good at being you, and ask questions when you don't know. Pretending to be a know-it-all only leads to trouble, anger and embarrassment. Always seek out the most competent authority you can find, for greater competence implies less likelihood for subsequent error. Seek out a second opinion. Maybe even a third just to be sure. Sometimes doing so is the only way to avoid disaster. What one authority may forget, another may remember. What one overlooks, another may not. Specialists, books, internet: The more research and effort you exert, the more knowledgeable you shall become and the better questions you shall subsequently ask.

    6. Group - Humankind's Most Potent Weapon Against All Potential For Mental Error.
          See also Avoiding Error.

   Two heads are better than one, if you can find someone to talk to. However, realize the importance of finding dedicated and competent members. If you cannot form such a qualified group, you will have to resort to INTENSE BRAINSTORMING on your own so that nothing becomes overlooked. (Perhaps in the far, far future shall mechanical intellect become possible, rendering human decision-making obsolete. Till then, we'll have to do things the hard way.)

    7. Time - Prerequisite For Progress.  See also Time & Resources on page 2.

   Human progress is slow. Look at how long we have taken to accomplish what we have up to now! Thinking is progress. Thinking is our only means of recognizing our own foolishness so that we may subsequently try to find a better way. Imagining alternate possibilities and analyzing matters further are our only tools for conducting such a search. If we fail to utilize either one, we fail to discover, or we fail to avoid tragedy, and we fail to progress. The ignorant must climb the mountains to see the valley between.

   Some things take time to recognize. Some things aren't apparent even to large groups. Imagination, Analysis and Research take time and lots of effort. For some things, we just have to keep working at finding a better way before one is finally found. Always remember that there is always a better way up until the point when you may prove beyond all doubt no better way to be possible. So, keep trying. There is something you are overlooking. Keep imagining. Keep researching. Continued effort is the only sure way to avoid impending loss or to gain what you now perceive to be beyond your reach.