The First Order of Business

An attorney I consulted with once made his overpriced service worth the financial hit by teaching me the ‘law of Holes’, which is: “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging!” The ‘first order of business’ is essentially the practice of stopping the digging. In other words, regardless of the details of the situation are facing, your most sensible first step is to make sure you are not about to make matters any worse than they absolutely have to be. It’s a considerable victory when accomplished — Imagine what the world would be like if everybody magically just stopped making matters worse; doubtlessly, it would be an improvement.

Practicing ‘the first order of business’ begins with reciting to yourself the mantra: “First and foremost, refrain from making matters any worse than they absolutely have to be.” When this thought is firmly anchored in your consciousness you can proceed with following the protocol below, which offers a systematic approach to meeting this basic challenge. The protocol has three parts:

• Know the nature of the process you are dealing with
• Pay Attention to your perspective
• Examine your influence

Know the Nature of the Process You Are Dealing With: Survival vs. Thrival

Developing conscious awareness of the true nature of the reality one faces is at the foundations of Mindfulness. As stated in the Introduction section (and restated throughout this work), members of our species are interested in two pursuits: The pursuit of survival and the pursuit of happiness (if whatever is going on doesn’t pertain to either, it is not important). Consistently, it can be said that our brains operate in one of two modes: Survival mode, and Pursuit of Happiness or ‘Thrival’ (thanks, LD) mode.

Success in the survival arena hinges on an approach that is radically different from (essentially, inverse of) the approach that works well in the pursuit of happiness. For example, when facing a survival threat one must rely on quick judgment, quick reaction, narrow perspective and sharp focus, and often, force. In comparison, in the pursuit of happiness speed is irrelevant (but timing is key), judgment should be minimized (avoided in favor of interest, if possible), reaction should be minimized (avoided, in favor of action), perspective should be broadened (the broader the better), and the use of force should always be shunned. Showing up with the wrong operational mode invariably spells trouble.

To function effectively one must be aware of the nature of surrounding reality –survival vs. thrival, and the suitability of one’s mental state relative to it. To avoid a costly mismatch between the nature of the circumstance and the mental stance it is imperative to sustain conscious awareness of the true nature of the process with which you are dealing, and the mode your brain is set to. This remarkably simple point is extremely important, and surprisingly easy to overlook.

The relevant skill-set is elementary. It comes down to asking yourself a couple of simple questions: What is the nature of the situation I’m dealing with? And, what mode is my brain set to? Both questions are binary: only two possible answers —  survival or thrival (i.e. pursuit of happiness). The distinction is between survival and non-survival situations is not subtle: In a survival situation someone’s life (your own or someone around you) is at an immediate, actual and measurable risk. There is no flexibility around this — someone might literally die as a result of whatever is going on. If that is not the case than the reality you are dealing with is about the pursuit of happiness (or, if it’s about neither, whatever is going on is of no importance). The distinction between survival-mode and thrival-mode is also easy to make and usually requires just a quick introspective look. For example, if you feel keyed-up (physically and/or mentally), or under great time pressure, or willing to (or even wishing you could) use force to move forward, your brain is probably set to survival mode. The key step, and only challenge here is to remember to ask.

In part, it is difficult to remember to ask oneself these simple questions because in the asking one may need to override the habit (created by an evolutionary reflex) of automatically turning ‘survival-mode’ on. Given that, by far, most of the threats encountered by members of the middle-class are not existential threats, habitually operating from ‘a survival mode’ amounts to habitually investing energy into making matters worse than they have to be, which obviously we want to avoid if at all possible.

It is therefore, a productive practice to ask yourself a few times at random points during your day to label the both the nature of the situation you are in (e.g., “am I facing a real survival threat?”) and the operational mode your brain is set to (e.g., is my brain in ‘survival mode’ or is it in the ‘pursuit of happiness’ mode?). If the situation and the mode are not compatible, particularly (and most likely), if you are in a survival mode when the surrounding reality does not present an actual survival threat, you will make matters worse for yourself, unless you switch away from survival to thrival mode.

It is especially important to learn to go through this short check-list when you are dealing with a serious problem or a crisis. If it is about survival, namely, the situation is such that someone’s life is actually at risk, forget all of this, don’t just sit there, do something! Call for help, try to escape, act! Do whatever you can to prevent a catastrophe.

The potential for serious, major problems is, of course, ever present. However, there is a critical and non-negotiable difference between a crisis in which, for example, you might lose all your possessions, reputation, or status, and a crisis in which you might lose your life. Regardless of the gravity of situation — even if it seems colossal, if nobody is at the risk of dying, you will make matters worse if you operate in survival mode. So, if it is not about survival, don’t just do something: Sit there. And think. Use your practice of mindfulness, and then, perhaps practice some more.

Pay Attention to Your Perspective

The importance of maintaining a “healthy perspective” is broadly recognized. (Detailed discussions of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of Perspective will be presented in the Theory and Practice sections, respectively. The following is a brief review of the key practical points). A narrow perspective is automatically turned on when survival mode is turned on. It permits less information to enter consciousness than a broad perspective (in return for a sharper focus) which is compatible with the demands of survival situations. It is not compatible with an effective pursuit of happiness.

The limitation on the amount of information that can be held on the screen of consciousness imposed by a narrow perspective essentially guarantees that data critical to the pursuit of happiness will be excluded and therefore, ignored. Another consequence of the narrow perspective is that given it restricts the amount of data permitted to appear on the screen, the screen ‘fills-up’ quickly. The subjective sensation that emerges when the screen of consciousness is taken up by a single issue is referred to as feeling ‘over-whelmed’. Being overwhelmed is very unpleasant, but worse, it negates rational thinking. It is virtually impossible to sustain clear logical thinking while one is overwhelmed. Obviously then, the ability to establish and sustain a broad perspective has significant value and is worth investing in.

The application of the following principles (which are discussed in more detail elsewhere) promotes maintaining a broad perspective. Incorporating them into your mental repertoire through regular practice is the way to make that investment.

• Know the difference between ‘caring’ and ‘matterness’ (my synonym for importance or significance) and apply this knowledge in real-time. Briefly, it is important to appreciate the fact that caring about something does not mean that thing matters. Just because you care about something does not necessarily mean that it is important. The ability to care deeply without automatically concluding that what you care about therefore must matter greatly supports maintaining a broad perspective (in a sense this amounts to giving oneself the permission to care about things that do not necessarily matter). Conversely, losing sight of the distinction — i.e., when intense caring automatically leads to the conclusion that that which you care about is of great importance, is antagonistic to maintaining a broad perspective.
• By extension, the ability to separate the intensity of one’s emotional response  from the gravity of the issue one is responding to is very useful. A practice geared to the development of this ability utilizes two 1 to 10 scales, one for rating the intensity of the emotional response and the other for rating the severity, or gravity, of the issue triggering the emotional response. Unchecked, an intense emotional response is guaranteed to raise the sense of gravity, or importance, of that which the emotional response is about. The gap between these two parameters is well worth recognizing; it can be brought into conscious awareness by using these two scales. For example, the realization that the intensity of your emotional response to losing your wallet is at an 9 out of 10 and the actual gravity of the loss is only at a 3 out of 10 can protect you from misperceiving the loss as 300% greater than it actually is. The ability to uncouple these two parameters (i.e., the intensity of the emotional response and the gravity of the issue being responded to) can make all the difference between maintaining a broad perspective and losing it.
• The screen of consciousness can be thought of as having two axes — a ‘time axis’ and a ‘place axis’. Stretching these axes is synonymous with broadening your perspective. In other words, it is worth making the mental effort required to sustain awareness of as much past experiences and future considerations (pertaining to the issue that is active in the present) as possible. For example, let’s say that the present issue at hand is a friend that offended you. An effort to maintain awareness of your shared past experiences together with awareness of plans you may have for the future will help to maintain a broad time perspective around the offense. This, in turn, will support thinking about the offense rationally and prevent feeling overwhelmed by it. Similarly, it is worth making the mental effort required to extend the ‘space axis’. A long ‘place axis’ makes room for additional information beyond just your own story on your screen of consciousness. In other words, deliberately paying attention to others’ life stories, in particular to the suffering of others, helps maintaining a broad perspective. Combining the two translates to optimizing perspective in general.
• Sense of humor is a psychological defense mechanism in the service of protecting the ability to sustain a broad perspective (and thus humor protects us from getting overwhelmed). Humor is not a luxury item; it is a psychological device that protects optimal mental functioning. Hence, it is important and worthwhile to cultivate your sense of humor and allow it to be a stable part of your life. When humor is (temporarily) lost it is impossible to deliberately to turn it back on, but it is still important to know that it is off. If you find yourself in a situation where humor has become sacrilege (e.g., when your thoughts are along the line of “there is absolutely nothing funny about this situation” or “how dare this person bring humor into this situation”) you should realize that an important line of perspective defense is down. This increases the risk of losing your ability to sustain a broad, healthy perspective rendering you more vulnerable to the consequences — a diminished ability to think clearly, and a greater likelihood of finding yourself overwhelmed.

Examine Your Influence

Refraining from making matters worse is synonymous with refraining from exerting negative influence. Influence, as our Buddhist friends tell us, is exerted via three channels: Action, Speech and Thought. Wrong action, wrong speech, and wrong thinking (each) constitute negative influence.

Refraining from wrong action means refraining from any action designed to cause harm. Most obviously, violent actions. When in doubt about the wrongness or rightness of the action you are considering, act less. When you don’t know what is the right thing to do, do less; sit on your hands. In the pursuit of happiness, unlike in the pursuit of survival, acting less is readily affordable, especially so if the alternative triggers the risk of taking the wrong action.

Refraining from wrong speech means refraining from speech designed to cause harm or, violent speech. When in doubt, say less; bite your lip (if you must). Saying less is always affordable in the pursuit of happiness.

Refraining from wrong thinking starts along the same pattern — with refraining from violent thoughts (such as violent plans or fantasies). But it goes an important step further. Any thought that stands in conflict with a known law of nature is a wrong thought. A Mindfulness practitioner aspires to identify and extract such misguided or wrong thoughts from their stream of consciousness.

When in doubt (as is the case with action and speech) — think less. Practically speaking, if you suspect that your mind is holding on to wrong thoughts and your practice is not strong enough to extract them, try to think less — watch a movie or go for a run. Or, if you can, meditate. Whatever works for you in order to think less is probably preferable to the risk embracing of wrong thinking. Return to thinking about the issue at a later time, when you are less at risk of wrong thinking.

The laws of nature that are of particular interest from a Mindfulness perspective are the three laws at the foundations of this theory: The law of impermanence, the law of sameness and the law of intent ( http://wp.me/P7aKBB-2A ). A practitioner aspires to develop the ability of continuously reviewing his/her stream of thoughts to ensure that wrong thoughts are not hiding there. Wrong thoughts that remain in the mix will lead to negative influencing.

The next step in this practice is turning on a specific kind of introspection by which you monitor your stream of thoughts (vigilantly, but calmly) for wrong thoughts — thoughts that are contrary to known and accepted laws of nature. The recognition that a thoughts is ‘wrong’ in this sense makes it easy to reject it, thus reducing the risk of exerting negative influence through wrong thinking.

Specifically — Treating ‘permanence’ as if it was anything but an illusion is wrong thinking. Train yourself to watch out for words such as ‘never’ and ‘always’ (as in: ‘it will always be this way’ or ‘this will never change’) offer a clue of the presence of thoughts in conflict with the law of impermanence.

Similarly, thinking of yourself as if in your essence you are not the same as all other humans is wrong thinking. Any thought along the lines of “because we are so different, there is no way we can relate to (or understand) each other” would be wrong thinking. And it doesn’t matter if you consider yourself different and therefore more precious and more deserving, or different and therefore less precious and deserving. A thought that departs from the law of sameness in either direction is a wrong thought. Furthermore, since the law of sameness is essentially the same as the law of interconnectedness, the notion that you are fundamentally separated form others (and its consequences, e.g., that therefore you can not be understood or related to properly, or that you are therefore unaffected by others’ level of suffering or happiness) is a source of wrong thinking and should be treated as such.

Lastly — the law of intent, which says that the meaning of any deliberate action is in the intent behind it. On the basis of the law of intent, the notion that you understand the meaning of a deliberate action (be it your own or anyone else’s) without giving careful attention to the underlying intent is wrong thinking.

When an act appears to cause negative consequences (i.e., essentially any level of discomfort or pain) the automatic default is to consider it a hostile act and the actor an enemy. This automatic habit is problematic. Just because it hurts does not mean that the instigator means harm. So, it is especially important that when we are hurt by someone’s action or speech we give careful attention to the intent that exists behind the hurtful behavior, before concluding what its meaning is. We can do this by asking the person who took the action and/or by contemplation. Concluding what an action means without a careful regard to the associated intent is likely to be off-target, lead to negative influence and, of course, should be avoided.

The law of intent applies to every deliberate human act. The meaning of your own actions are defined by their underlying intent just like everybody else’s. It is therefore of the utmost importance to make an sincere effort to bring one’s own intent into conscious awareness before acting or speaking. Not paying attention to the underlying intent amounts to wrong thinking.

There is no such suffering that justifies causing suffering. There is no exception to this most fundamental rule. Any action, speech, or thought that my be associated with an intent to cause suffering must be avoided, if for no other reason, simply because they are guaranteed to make matters worse.

Obviously, a lack of awareness of one’s own intent carries a risk of harboring a negative intent (i.e., the risk of making matters worse) and thus should obviously be avoided. This principle is straight forward: It is important to reflect on your own intent prior to committing to any course of conduct. Simply, ask yourself, before you commit, “what is my intent here?” Applying this in practice however can get a bit tricky. This is so, in part, because it is common to feel pressured to act quickly, and taking a minute to reflect on the intent can seem unaffordable. Additionally, the first answer (or the first few answers) that come to mind may not be accurate or honest; it is therefore a good practice to be skeptical and challenge the validity of one’s own answers (with relevant questions or mental experiments) until confidence in their validity is earned. Obviously, this takes more time. Recalling the distinction between survival situations (where speed is often critical) and thrival situations (where timing is key and speed is usually insignificant) can help maintaining the appropriate pace.

As a general principle in the practice of Mindfulness: It is more important  to ask the right questions than to answer the right answers. Answers get more accurate and reliable with repetition. Repetition is practice and practice is the only way to develop mastery.