Think Straight

by Darius Foroux

  After years of chaos in my mind, I just had enough of mental suffering. I can’t make it any prettier than that. You don’t need an “all is lost” moment. Those type of moments almost never happen.

  About two years ago, I started changing my thoughts. And I’ve learned to replace the chaos in my mind with clarity. Now, there’s peace. In the rest of this book, I’ll share with you exactly how I did it. But first, I want to share a brief history of thinking.

  A (Very) Brief History Of Thinking

  Thoughts are important. But not all thoughts are equal. The quality of your thoughts matters the most. Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius said it best: “The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.”

  A quick look at our surroundings shows us that life is changing faster than ever. Jobs disappear, smartphones turn you into a zombie, education costs you thousands, the cost of living increases rapidly, salaries don’t, you have less time for yourself, and so on. Life changes so fast that it seems like you wake up in a new world every day! What do your thoughts make of that? If you’re anything like me, these developments cause a lot of thinking, aka worrying and uncertainty. How do I survive? How do I adapt my business to changing markets? How do I advance my career? How do I not lose my mind? Mastering your thoughts is challenging.

  The desire to master our thoughts is as old as modern civilization. Ever since the fifth century BC, philosophers from all ages and regions agree on one thing: The human mind is an instrument that solves problems. And many philosophers argue that the quality of your thoughts determine the quality of your life. From Confucius to Socrates to Descartes to William James, they all talk about their method of thinking—a way to view the world.

  Most of us know the Socratic method of questioning everything, even yourself. “I know one thing: That I know nothing,” is what Socrates famously told the Oracle of Delphi when Socrates was declared the wisest man on earth. The fact that he thinks that he knows nothing makes him wise. That’s a way of thinking.

  French philosopher René Descartes, who lived in the 17th century, took it one step further. He questioned everything in life, even his own existence. Because how do you know you’re not dreaming or living in The Matrix? That’s why he famously said: “Cogito ergo sum.” Popularly translated to, “I think, therefore I am.” Descartes concluded that he must exist because he’s able to think.

  No matter how crazy your thoughts are, it’s safe to say that you do exist. So why not make your existence a little more practical, lighthearted, fun, and useful?

  Have you ever observed or written down your thoughts? I challenge you, try it for a day. Every two hours or so, sit down and write about what you’re thinking at that very moment. Just don’t get scared of yourself. Most of our thoughts make no sense at all. We’re conflicted as a species. Descartes also reviewed his own thoughts and found many contradictions. His most important idea is that we should question the source of our beliefs, not the belief itself. Because most of our beliefs are based on our or other people’s perception.

  How many of your ideas are based on what others have told you? Or based on your first thoughts or assumptions? At the core of thinking lies our ability to separate the truth from falsehood. What is true, what is false?

  One way to look at that question is to take a pragmatic perspective. William James describes the idea of pragmatism as follows: “The attitude of looking away from first things, principles, 'categories,' supposed necessities; and of looking towards last things, fruits, consequences, facts.” Thoughts should serve a useful purpose. If they don’t, they’re useless. That’s straight thinking.

  Pragmatism is a method of thinking, not a solution. In fact, all thinking is a method. Your thoughts serve as an instrument. But it’s a conflicting instrument that’s very hard to use. Henry Ford said it best: “Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” Thinking is not only hard—it’s the single most important thing in life.

  Remember: The quality of our thoughts determines the quality of our lives. And our decisions are a result of our thoughts.

  Life Is Not Linear

  I always thought in a linear way: A leads to B. And if B is C, A also leads to C. I looked at appearances, first thoughts, and made a lot assumptions. But my thoughts didn’t serve a useful purpose. In fact, they served no purpose at all. Instead of thinking, I followed convention. I let others do the thinking for me. Most of us are like that. For example, I thought I would never have to worry about having a job if I got my college degree. I honestly believed that until I was about 26 years old. I figured out the hard way that nothing is guaranteed in life and that you have to work hard to earn money. And that making money has nothing to do with your degrees. If I had to pick another predictor of career success I would say it’s skills. The better you are at something, the more value you can provide to others, and the more money people are willing to pay in exchange for your value.

  Also, achieving a goal never happens linearly. Most of us believe there’s a straight line from where you are to where you want to be. Let’s say your goal is to start a business so you can have more freedom in your life. That was always my goal. I thought I would just work on it until I achieved it.

  But that’s not how it worked out. I had to take a lot of detours. I worked for many other people in between. I also started businesses that failed. Understanding that life is not linear helps us to change the way we think. Along the way, I got discouraged a lot and almost quit. Now, I realize that things often don’t go according to plan. That helps me to think of backup plans or alternative options to get closer to my goals.

  Another personal goal of mine was to invest in real estate. When I lived in London and Amsterdam, that was difficult for me because I didn’t have enough capital to get started. So instead of putting a lot of pressure on myself to make more money and sacrifice the quality of my life, I started looking elsewhere. After researching growing real estate markets, I ended up in my hometown. Prices were low, I knew a lot of people, the population was increasing, and the city invested a lot in new businesses and education. Two months after I decided to look elsewhere, I bought my first deal there. The point is that there are multiple ways to achieve your goals. Also, if everyone is doing one thing, that often means you shouldn’t.

  Connect The Dots

  Your brain is constantly working, even when you’re not actively thinking. Apart from managing all the vital functions of your body, the brain also scans every piece of information that comes in. The brain compares it with other information that it has already stored. Your brain searches for similarities and differences between that information. That’s how we think and use our brain to come up with new ideas. The brain consists of many small networks of neurons that connect to other networks, like this:

  Just a basic understanding of how my brain works helps me to understand how I can nurture it. I don’t worry about finding a direct application for information I acquire. I feed my brain with knowledge that I’m curious about. And that diverse information might be stored in different networks, but as long as I connect the dots later, I’m okay with that. Like Steve Jobs said, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

  If you want the dots to connect in the future, you have the make sure you form dots in your brain. The only way you form dots is by learning, doing, making mistakes, reflecting, or anything you can do to feed your brain with the input it needs to give you the output you want.

  Filter Your Thoughts

  There’s too much information in the world for our brain to process. So, we’re forced to filter it. If we don’t, we go nuts! And in that filtering-process, we develop shortcuts to ease the cognitive load of making decisions.

  These shortcuts are called heuristics. A heuristic is a strategy we derive from previous experience with a similar problem. One
heuristic that everyone knows is “trial and error,” a strategy for finding answers to problems we face. It’s also a way of thinking. But trial and error is not always the most practical strategy. If we would rely on trial and error to build a career, we would probably die before achieving that goal. Life is too short for applying trial and error to everything.

  Another heuristic that’s not practical is “social proof.” We often make decisions based on what others do or say. And my favorite heuristic is “familiarity.” It says that past behavior that led to good results is not a guarantee for future results. The familiarity heuristic also explains why we favor things and places we know over novelty. It’s one of those things we see every day. We eat the same things, we walk the same route, we make the same mistakes, and we complete the same tasks at work. Over and over again. And then, we complain that our lives are stuck or boring. No wonder, you’re making decisions based on familiarity. But who says that familiarity is always a good thing? It’s good for certainty. But to achieve a breakthrough, you need something different.

  Making decisions based on heuristic techniques might ease the cognitive load, but they are far from practical. And often, heuristics lead to unsatisfying outcomes. If that’s the case, take it as a sign that you must change something. Instead of relying on heuristics to filter information and make decisions, rely on the main idea of pragmatism: True is what works. But don’t take it too literally. “Taking drugs works for me,” is what a contentious friend told me after I shared this idea with him. And he’s right—you can’t take this idea too literally. But what can you take literally in life? Take the platitude, “Good things come to those who wait,” for example. I don’t have to explain that it doesn’t mean you should sit at home and wait forever until “good things” happen.

  Look at the “true is what works” idea as a filter that you can apply to all the information that goes into your brain.

  When faced with decisions, I ask myself: “Will the outcome of a decision change the way I live?” If you ask that yourself consistently, you’ll find that you automatically filter out useless information and only make decisions that have an actual impact on the outcome of your life. You force yourself to use whatever works—what’s useful. And what impacts your habits.

  For example, conventional thinking says that bigger cities also bring you bigger opportunities. I really thought that was true. That’s even the main reason I moved to London. And yes, I did seize a big opportunity for me at the time. But I also had bigger responsibilities and problems. Also, I don’t like big cities. I hate crowded places, dirty air, and unreasonably high cost of living. Clearly, living in a big city didn’t work for me. That way of thinking had a negative impact on the way I lived. That’s why I eventually moved back to Leeuwarden. It’s quiet, I know a lot of people here, I can work less, make more, and I can drive anywhere in the city within ten minutes. However, I also realize that for most people, my way of living doesn’t work. They might find it boring or not exciting enough. So what? Do what works for you.

  Stop “Thinking”

  Thinking is difficult. I never knew how to stop. It’s easy to stay inside your head for hours, especially when you’re in bed at night. But I can confidently say that 99% of all my thoughts in the past have been useless. I didn’t do anything with my thoughts most of the time. I didn’t solve a problem. Nor did I try to understand difficult ideas or concepts from books. I spent a lot of time in my head doing this:

  I called that thinking. But it was more like worrying, stressing, freaking out — call it whatever you want. I call it a preoccupied mind. And with what?

  And the list goes on:

  “I wonder what my boss thinks?”

  “What happens if I screw up and lose my job?”

  “I think he doesn’t care about me.”

  “I just keep failing.”

  “Does she love me?”

  “Why does my life suck?”

  “Why is my life awesome, and other people’s lives are not?”

  “I don’t care about my job. Is there something wrong with me?”

  “I can’t finish anything. What’s wrong with me?”

  “I want to quit.”

  I just have one question for you: What’s the practical use of the above thoughts?

  Yes? I’m waiting. Still no answer? Exactly.

  Those type of thoughts are not helping us. But we all have them. So how do you get rid of them? Well, I’ve learned that you can’t get rid of them. Remember? We can’t control our consciousness. We can only control what thoughts we follow through on.

  You only have to be aware of your thoughts. Acknowledge them. But never blame yourself or say, “Why do I have these thoughts?” No one has the answer to that. It’s better to be aware of your thoughts and decide what you will ignore, and what you will give importance to.

  For example, the thought of quitting whatever I’m doing in my life has been on my mind as long as I remember. When I was in high school, I wanted to quit and just find a job. When I played basketball, I wanted to quit, and later did quit. I can go on and on until I reach the present. No matter how much I love what I do, the thought of quitting and just walking away shows up in my mind at least three or four times a month. In the past, those thoughts cost me many nights of sleep.

  About two years ago I had enough. I wanted to quit thinking. So, I started becoming aware of my thoughts instead of always acting on every single thought I had. “You don’t control me,” I would say to myself like a weirdo. But it works. I’m much calmer and happier because of it. When I want to quit, I still listen to it because sometimes it is a sign. But more often, it’s just fear. And I refuse to surrender to it. And neither should you.

  Inside Your Control vs Outside Your Control

  If you want to have useful thoughts, here’s a rule of thumb: Only think about things you can control. That automatically eliminates about 99% of your thoughts because there’s very little you control in life.

  Only focus on what you control. Things like your:

  Desires

  Actions

  Words

  Intentions

  What’s a useless thought? Anything out of your control and without a useful purpose. Do you ever think about the past? That’s the perfect example of a random thought that lacks a purpose, unless you’re reflecting on a past decision or mistake you made. In the case of reflection, you’re doing something useful. But other than that, every thought about the past serves no purpose. From that point of view, it’s useless.

  Ever fantasize about the future? That’s also useless. I’ve discovered two main types of useful thoughts:

  Thinking about how you can solve problems. A problem is just an unanswered question. Put your brain to use and think about how you can solve problems. There are a lot of those on this earth.

  Understanding knowledge. That means this: Try to internalize knowledge and think about how you can use that knowledge to improve your life, career, work, relationships, etc.

  That’s it. You can ignore every other thought. If you’re constantly thinking without a useful purpose, it’s because you haven’t’ trained your mind yet. You have to get out of your head. If not, you’ll go mental. Everyone will. No exception.

  Ask yourself: “Is that worth it?”

  Do you really want to waste your time, energy, and life on useless thinking? You and I both know the answer to that. Commit to stop thinking about useless things. Start taking control of your mind. All that worrying about the past and the future is not going to help you. It never did. And it never will.

  Don’t Trust Your Mind

  Have you ever made a decision that seemed illogical looking back? We’re very illogical beings. Every person creates their own social reality. The way you view the world is completely subjective because we all have cognitive biases.

  The concept of cognitive biases was introduced in 1972 by two psychologists, Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. A cognitive bias is a systematic thi
nking error that impacts judgments, and therefore, our decisions.

  My favorite cognitive bias is the “attentional bias.” It’s scientific evidence for the idea that your life is a result of your thoughts. The attentional bias states that our perceptions are affected by our thoughts. And naturally, our perceptions determine our actions and decisions, which make up our lives. If you have negative thoughts, you also have a negative perception of life. That’s what it says. Our mind might be illogical, but it’s also simple at the same time.

  Take one of the most well-known cognitive biases, the confirmation bias. It explains the behavior of confirming our preconceptions. If you believe in something, you will try hard to find information, clues, and signs to back that up. In other words, you do everything to prove you’re not wrong. Instead of looking at facts, you look at beliefs. And that’s what all cognitive biases do. As of this writing, there are 106 decision-making related cognitive biases known! I’ve read about most of them. And I’ve read several books and studies about cognitive biases too. My conclusion is that your mind can’t be trusted. Maybe my conclusion is also a cognitive bias. Who knows?

  What it comes down to is this: Avoid making decisions based on beliefs, obvious logic, and even science.

  Scientists are also human beings. That means they have their own cognitive biases. They are notorious for finding evidence for their preconceptions. The solution to making better decisions is not more knowledge. Instead, I’ve found that a pragmatic and neutral perspective leads to better-informed decisions. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as “the best decision.” If that was the case, we lived in a perfect world full of people who made logical and practical decisions. I like to look at it this way: There are only good-informed and bad-informed decisions.