Thought Experiments and Fear

Greetings on this fine Tuesday! I have a thought experiment to share with you, but first I want to indulge a few, well, thoughts on thought experiments.

Thought experiments can be incredibly useful, I think. Our lives and our mind-chatter can be so frenetic at times that they obscure our ability to focus. When this happens, then, and we find ourselves frustrated by the proverbial clutter, it can be helpful to impose certain parameters on our thinking. Now, I like to think about this in terms of games and music. Think about it: if games didn't have rules, there would be chaos; you wouldn't know what to do or where to go, and it would be decidedly un-fun in very short order. So if you're by yourself with a deck of cards and you don't know the rules to, say, solitaire, that deck of cards is going to be pretty useless. With music, if you don't know how to play an instrument, and you don't have an idea (intrinsic and/or studied) of how music works, then you won't be able to play it. In games and music, then, rules actually set us free by enabling us to play: when we know the rules, we don't have to think about them -- we can just play.

Good thought experiments work the same way. In a thought experiment, a hypothetical question or scenario acts the same way as do the rules of a game; i.e., just as knowledge of the rules of solitaire frees us to play it, a full consideration of the hypothetical question or scenario frees us to explore everything within its parameters.

I've found the following thought experiment to be enormously helpful with respect to, among other things, decision-making, gaining clarity, and grounding in the moment (i.e., getting out of my head). The question is, simply,

"What would you feel or think about this if all the fear associated with it were gone?"

It was a jackpot question for me at the time, it really was. When I asked myself that question, I was trying to make a decision about something important. I had made my lists of pros and cons; I had assessed the likely outcomes of my options; I had talked it out with other people; and I had done everything I could imagine to help myself arrive at a sound, decision-making platform -- but I remained very unclear about it. I soon realized that most of my confusion was borne out of fear -- not all of which, I should note, was irrational fear. I knew that there could be unpleasant consequences as the result of making a particular decision. But as soon as I asked myself that question up there, the answer instantly appeared. I made my decision accordingly, and I'm happy with it.

Fear remains, but that's ok. I'll always have fear about something or other, as will we all. We wouldn't be human if we weren't afraid of things. Sometimes it's ok to honor our fear and let it guide our decisions; but sometimes fear makes things seem a lot worse than they are. Sometimes fear just works to strip us of our clarity and confidence, and of our ability to listen to ourselves. A good thought-experiment can be the perfect antidote. Give it a go!