Thinking differently is one skill we all have ignored. It is much easier and less stressful when we think like everyone else and conform to existing stereotypes. Growing up, there were a few times we would do something ill-advised and when our parents found out about it, they would ask, “What were you thinking?”. In other words, your thinking about the situation which prompted your action or decision was not very smart. What and how we think is a great determinant of how we will end up, and by extension how societies of the world will be because societies are made up of units of families, and individuals.
Proverbs 4:23 (GNT) puts it this way, “Be careful how you think for your life is shaped by your thoughts. Humans are thinking beings, the one skill that separates us from other creatures of God. To think differently. We are created in the image of the creator himself to create and invent new things because we are indeed bestowed with the greatest tool of all time – THE BRAIN.
The Strength of The Human Brain
There is a popular belief that the human brain may be more powerful than a computer, for it possesses about 100 billion neurons with roughly 1 quadrillion — 1 million billion — connections known as synapses wiring these cells together. Imagine what a computer can achieve. Now, if our brains are more powerful, imagine what they can create if put to proper use to think differently. Unfortunately, the brain is the most under-utilized human organ because man has failed to put it to adequate use by committing to creative thinking.
Productivity and creativity involve the willingness to put the mind to use. Putting the mind to use is committing to critically thinking differently about a situation, searching for answers, asking questions, analyzing existing information and digging deep into the realm of mysteries that can only be found by those committed to deep thinking. What use is a great computer when it is always shot down and never functioning, analyzing data and updating reports?
The majority Are Brain Dead
Unfortunately, this is where the great majority of the world is. Millions of brains are shut down, and out of service. Many walking bodies in corporate organizations, in charge of nations’ polity, in religious institutions and within societies across the world are either brain dead or have left their minds to go to sleep by failing to put their minds to work through the art of thinking differently.
This is made obvious in the results we see around us – the breakdown of law and order, corruption which has grossly affected the bane of our societies and government parastatals, and cultural maladies that are pervasive in today’s world.
Ask The Right Questions
We need to ask questions because they spur creative thinking and solutions. Excluding those who are physically ill, depressed or mentally sick, and individualizing this to the reader, why would a healthy individual not employ the use of his mind to solve his problems? Why would a normal educated human fail to use the cognitive ability bestowed on him to live a productive and progressive when you think differently?
What if society is wrong?
What if the culture is wrong?
What if the most popular opinions are wrong?
What if the experts are wrong?
What if the pastor is wrong?
What if you are wrong?
Believe me when I say that sometimes, they are wrong. For instance, why should we condense every difficulty we encounter as spiritual? Why do we blame the devil for every problem in our lives? This is not trivializing genuine spiritual issues, but most so-called spiritual problems we suffer from stem from ignorance and lack of adequate knowledge required from the word of God to address and bring lasting solutions.
Why Don’t We Use Our Minds?
When we fail we use the mind, we give away our power to someone else by allowing them to dictate the direction our lives should go.
Now, the question is WHY? Why would a normal and healthy human choose to suspend his brain and not use it to his own advantage and subsequently help others?
The answer is found in nothing less than mental laziness. When the brain has been trained to reject thinking and critical analysis, the very function it was created to perform. When the brain fails to think, it becomes easy to accept falsehood and to be manipulated. it becomes a dangerous weapon to perpetrate the worst evil that can be imagined. That explains the adage, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”
When we keep avoiding deep and critical thinking differently, usually because it’s simply too much effort, then we are on a path of mental destruction. Instead of thinking for ourselves, we allow others to tell us how to think. The more we do this, the worse our thinking abilities become. Like any muscle, if you don’t use it, it gets weaker.
Afflicted With Mental Laziness
People who struggle with mental laziness typically make choices based on whims and gut reactions. They take on a “do it first, think about it later” approach. Mental laziness is exercising a lesser potential of your mind while allowing outside influences to determine your thought direction.
We are mentally lazy when we accept cultural political, spiritual and societal stereotypes because that is the way it has been done. When we don’t ask questions. It is only those who ask that receive.
Unfortunately, mental laziness put us in a prison house of small minds. It is only those who dare think differently that rise up as a light in the midst of darkness.
The Man Who Thought Differently
Apostle Paul was one such. He singlehandedly sheds light on the mind of God as regards man’s identity, positioning and joint heirship in Christ. He was thinking differently. Even Peter attested that the man spoke strange things he did not understand.
Every one of us arrived here with creative ability in one area of life or the other. Don’t let anyone deceive you that creativity and the ability to event new things is only for special and smart people.
The simplest definition of creativity I can come up with is, “Seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought.”
Dare to think differently
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