A friend of mine is currently working on a book, which in a quick read appears very simple as we do not really absorb the consequences. Upon a deeper dive into the text, much, which we thought was understood, is turned upside down.

One point in the book which caused me to reflect was the rule of cause and effect. Superficially viewed we get the impression that with this rule we can control everything. That situations are logical and foreseeable … I am hard working and will thus be successful ... I am lazy and will not achieve much …I am honest and will not have problems; I cheat and will get into trouble...

Of course we know that there are exceptions  and that not everything can be stereotyped, but in general we ultimately agree … if I give you attention we will understand each other better than if I don’t notice you, correct? We believe we know what will happen; we believe to have a high degree of control.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the matter with a simple example:

Just continue to read on, and absorb the links of different cause and effect chains which, with the smallest of change, can always end up in a different place!

ð Why is my desk standing here? > Because I bought it and set it up here.

• Why did I buy it? > Because I needed one and saw a nice one that was for sale.
• Why did I need one? > Because I wanted to write this newsletter.
• Why did I want to write this newsletter? > Because …. (and the story goes on)

• Why was I in the place where the table was sold? > Because I wanted to visit my grandmother and got lost.
• Why did I want to visit my grandmother? > Because …

• Why was the table for sale? > Because the carpenter had made it. Why did the carpenter make it? > Because that is his vocation and because tables are in demand and he had wood to make it.
• Why did the carpenter become a carpenter? > Because …

• Why are tables in demand? > Because …

• Why was wood available? > Because a seed fell onto fertile soil, it rained enough, the tree was not cut down earlier, etc. > A transportation company delivered the wood to the carpenter…

• Why does the transportation company deliver wood to the carpenter? > Because they had a contract with the carpenter and on and on …

Now, transpose this example into your life. Perhaps you are raising children and assume you have to do certain things so that your children become wonderful adults or are successful in the future. Or you work in a company and firmly believe you will have control over the next hours, days or months. Perhaps your communication style is affected by past experiences – cause and effect as teachers.

In any case, it is not wrong to learn from experience and much is easier when we have an idea what might happen. It becomes more difficult, however, when we become less open, less attentive or less flexible through an experience. Business flourished until the crash came, Fukushima was safe until the earthquake hit, my career was exemplary until my heart attack, our marriage was good until suddenly we had nothing to say to each other…

Be perceptive about the small changes or omens, because you don’t believe you know everything or have everything under control. Be more flexible and open for change because you know that it often ends differently than expected. Cause and effect is a chain of events or chance and is therefore just as incalculable as it is influenceable … as long as we understand that in the moment it changes and develops.

Quotes

As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

The course of life is unpredictable, no one can write his autobiography in advance.

Abraham J. Heschel

You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.

A. J. Kitt