The Art of Thinking

It is 11AM and I am at work going through the list of caseloads that my supervisor gave me and luckily, I have one hour to spare before lunch begins since I completed going through the work list.  The thought of furthering my career lurked out and then I found myself debating the pros and cons of pursuing a professional degree once again.  This thought has been on my mind since my undergraduate years in college but I have never taken it seriously due to the fact I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life.  I thought about maybe pursuing a Physician Assistant or PharmD degree but the problem that arises is I do not want to own thousands of dollars for the loans without making any money while I am in the training process. If I were a 21-year-old, I would have given them a second thought, but as I am older now and I have more experiences under my belt to know those paths won’t give me the time to take care of other priorities.  So here I found myself  “thinking.”  

What is thinking? Thinking is a mental activity that comes before a physical action.  It requires focus and experiences; and the focus part is simple but the experiences are hard to attain as the only way to get them is to get out in the real world. And let’s say many college students and even some adults lack them in order to make good and informed decisions.  Here I was thinking of the pros and cons of pursuing a professional degree before I take any action. 

In order to think clearly and logically, there are many ways for us to cultivate the skill.  For one thing, traveling can help us learn how to think. While we are in an area we don’t know, we have no choice but to think what is the best way to do certain tasks.  For instance, we have to find the fastest and the most cost effective ways to get from one location to another and we have to think on our feet as well. Yes, there are help from the natives and other tourists but generally speaking, we have to do the planning and the thinking on our own. Secondly, talking to other fellow human beings helps form the thinking mind.  We cannot talk to just anyone, it is always better to talk to someone who has more experiences and is smarter than us. When we interact with other people, we are sharing ideas and open our brains to different perspectives that might not have crossed our minds. MeetUp meetings and church events, for instance, can provide us with copious number of people to teach us how to think. Lastly, the best method to learn how to think is through experiences. Good decision comes from experiences and experiences come from bad decisions. It holds true in our professional and personal life, whether we are dating or are looking for the career that suits our personalities.  And the only way to gain experiences is to go out and be a part of the world.  

To sum up, thinking comes from experiences and it is a learned skill. It is the fundamental skill that we all must master in order to survive in the real world and to do well in many parts of our lives. No school or books can teach us how to think for ourselves. In fact, school might be a hindrance to our thinking skill as we have to follow instructions and rules and no one can learn how to think for themselves when they are always being told of what to do by a teacher. We have to go out there and get our hands dirty and learn what it takes to think on our own. Sure we will make mistakes here and there but what matters is we learn from them.  When we finally grasp what it takes to think on our own, we are free and even more joyful and best of all more self-sufficient in the real world.