Guidepost One: The Power of Cause and Effect (Aka Episode 44)
If you don't understand the cause of a problem, you can waste a lot of energy trying to fixing that problem before you sit down exhausted, wondering why nothing has changed.
She was packing up her books when she finally shared her discovery. “I realized last night that we will be starting our fourth cycle of the guideposts on the first day of the Lunar New Year. The Year of the Dragon,” she added with relish. “Don’t you think that’s significant?”
“It’s the year of the Wood Dragon,” I reminded her. “The dragon represents strength, courage, creativity, and innovation, while the wood elements adds growth, enthusiasm, idealism, imagination, and flexibility.”
“But it’s got to be significant, right? The fact that we’re starting a new cycle at the first of a lunar New Year? How often does that happen?”
“Do you really want to do the math?” I warned. “Because I will if you want to.”
“No, no, no. Please no,” she replied holding up her hands. “I think we should just start with the guideposts.”
“Fine,” I said, secretly relieved because that kind of math often evades me. I know it has to do with finding a least common multiple, but finding the least common multiple between a fourteen week solar cycle and a yearly lunar cycle is like finding the least common multiple for 14 solar weeks and 50.624285714286 lunar weeks. (Turns out, the answer is: 709; so every 709 solar weeks (or fourteen years)—give or take a decimal—we would have the same coincidence. Yes, I am a geek. Yes, I let the computer do the math.) But instead of telling her this, I simply asked, “How would you like to tackle this week’s guidepost?”
“Well, since it’s the Power of Cause and effect, I was thinking we could start with that lady in your book. The one who was thinking about leaving her husband.” She pulled out her copy of my book and started reading:
One of my students-of-the-river was so frustrated with her husband that she was considering leaving him. She wanted to know what I thought. I asked her to explain the specific cause of her frustration.
“He always expects me to do everything,” she told me. “I always have to pick up after him. He never picks up anything for himself. He comes home, opens a bag of chips, eats two and leaves the bag on the table for me to pick up. I’ve tried talking to him, but he doesn’t care what I want. He tells me to just hire a maid, but I don’t want to waste money on a maid. Besides, what maid will follow around behind him picking up his messes? A maid only comes once a week.”
“You want him to pick up after himself?”
“Yes.”
“You have talked to him about what you want?”
“Every day.”
“You’ve been married for eight years. For eight years, you’ve been saying the same thing; and for eight years, he hasn’t been paying attention?”
“Yes!”
Well no wonder she was frustrated. “If explaining to him what you want the first time didn’t create the effect you want, and the second time didn’t create the effect you want, and the third, and the fourth,” I asked, “then what makes you think that explaining to him what you want the thousandth time will create a different effect?”
As she realized her own illogic, she started to giggle.
She had made the same presentation to the same person over 24,000 times, and she had received the same response. Her experience was a classic case of cause and effect. She hadn’t changed her presentation, so she had no reason to expect a different effect. Her husband defined her actions as nagging, and she nearly believed him. But I define nagging as misunderstanding the nature of cause and effect.
If your boat keeps crashing, then perhaps you should redesign your boat; and if you want a different effect on someone, then perhaps you should change your presentations. The only way to get people to pick up their socks is to make them want to pick up their socks. And while people will seldom “pick up their socks” for your reasons, they will sometimes “pick up their socks” for their own reasons. In order to get the effect she wanted, my student needed to learn the rules of the river. Rules like persuasion and communication. Rules that don’t advocate making the same, ineffective presentation twice.
At this point in my story, people always interrupt to ask, “What did she do?” They want to know her technique, so they can run home and try it for themselves.
Well here, for the record, is “what she did.”
She stopped swimming against the current. She stopped trying to change her husband and learned to change herself…
She would have kept reading, but I stopped her. “It was a lie, you know,” I informed her.
“What do you mean it was a lie?” She looked up startled. “The story a was lie?"
“No, not at all. The story is absolutely true. I even made her do the calculation. (Twelve years of marriage) x (making the same argument every day). She really did start giggling,” I paused, remembering the giggle, then shook it off and continued. “No, the lie is about how people react to the story. They don’t want to know how she changed. They wanted to know why they are the ones who need to change. At least one person in every class or lecture has always held up their hand in protest. ‘Why am I the person who needs to change when so-and-so is wrong?’ Even today, I see people post comments on Facebook like this:
I see absolutely no need to be the least bit respectful of them or their positions. They obviously don't respect the position they occupy (so) why in the world should I respect them, or be polite towards them?
“So what’s the problem?”
“Their question is the problem. Their mindset is the problem. I can’t think of any relationship in which disrespecting, disregarding, or endless talking, helps. I don’t know of any situation in which a refusal to change changes anything. I also know that the only thing that I can change on this planet are my own thoughts and my own actions.” She seemed concerned, so I rushed on. “Don’t get me wrong. You don’t have to change who you are, just how you react to situations.”
“But I still don’t understand why we need to change if we are not the problem?”
“Perhaps grow is a better word than change. Let’s try your last question again, but exchange the word change with the word grow.”
She thought back to her own question and decided to try it, “Why do we need to grow if we are not the problem?” She heard herself say it, and then she started to giggle when she realized she’d been arguing against her own growth. Her giggle reminded me of the giggle that I had heard years ago.
“Grow,” I repeated. “Find new ways to communicate. Find new ways to relate. Find ways to negotiate that don’t include belittling others. Because unless you and I are willing to grow, there will be no growth; we will continue doing the same thing over and over again, stuck in our own corners, expecting a different result.”
“Einstein’s definition of insanity, right?”
I didn’t even bother to groan. She already knew how I felt about misattributed quotes. (I have recently learned that according to QuotesInvestgator.com, the quote can be traced to Alcoholics Anonymous. But, of course AA is anonymous on purpose, so we will probably never known who actually first said it.) Instead, I chose to smile and say, “Whoever said it, Einstein, or an alcoholic trying to recover, or the dozens of other possible sources, the advice is still the same. Does it really matter who first said it, so long as it’s good advice?”
“It might matter to Einstein,” she grinned, trying to push my button.
“Einstein doesn’t care anymore. Perhaps it is time to move on.”
Her eyes began to twinkled. “I know how to move on,” she said suddenly excited. “Cause and Effect is about looking at the man in mirror and asking him to change his ways, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am talking about a great way to end this episode and explain this guidepost. The whole point of the Power of Cause and Effect is using it as a tool to solve problems, right?” I nodded, so she continued. “And the only way to solve a problem if we can change our own ways, right? So, if we want to make a change, we’ve got to take in a look in the mirror and make a change in ourselves, right? Or else we will keep repeating the same mistakes.”
“I suppose,” I answered, uncertain as to where she was going.
“I am thinking of a song about looking at yourself and making a change.”
I looked over her shoulder to see what she was planning. “I am not sure about this,” I hesitated. “Lot’s of people ask people to change but then never tell them how.”
“But that is what the rest of the guideposts do, right?” she insisted. “They help people diagnose problems and develop strategies, so people can make a change. Or rather,” she grinned again. “Can begin to grow.”
“Like fertilizer?” I commented drily.
“No, no, no,” she replied. “It’s just because it’s a song that makes me think about the need for change. I mean it was written way back in what?”
“The post says 1987,” I noticed.
“And still nothing has changed,” she said, throwing up her arms.
“You’re wrong there,” I said. “We have made many changes since 1987; just not always good ones.”
“So you don’t want me to post it?” Her face kind of crumbled.
“It’s not that I don’t want you to post it. I just don’t like the idea of telling people that they’re the only ones who can effect a change in their lives without also giving them a few tools to begin.”
“I can see that,” she conceded, then looked up with her eyes again twinkling. “How about this? Before I post the song, we post your table of contents for the rest of the guideposts, along with our first article on Cause and Effect, that way people can get the first full lesson, and I can get my song.”
I couldn’t resist her sparkling eyes, so I let her do as she wished.
