Our thinking process tends to be quite narrow when we consider the cause and effect aspects of our activities and actions.

I bring few examples: “If I manage to read a big fat book, I only learn about the things in that book” or “If I do physical exercise, the only benefit I get, is me getting more fit” or “If I eat shitty food, I only gain some extra calories” etc. We often fail to realize the other effects attached to the action.

E.g., in the first example, we might miss that in addition to learning about the contents of the book, we also train our focusing ability. If you can read through a 600p+ book, it tells something about you. People who have read the Atlas Shrugged, Ulysses or War and Peace, have not just ‘read’ those books - they have demonstrated their ability to have sustained focus. A regular millennial with the attention span of an ant will not go through Atlas Shrugged in a million years.

Exercising is also not ‘just’ exercising. If you go to the gym, you’re not just exercising your body but also your mind. You train your self-discipline. When you push yourself to complete exhaustion, you train your mind always to go further. Naturally, this will also affect the other parts of your life - you start to push further in everything you do.

Eating junk food does not only give you extra calories, but it also gives you shitty thoughts. As your brain gets bad nutrients, it can’t generate great thoughts. You are what you eat. So, if you eat a lot of bread, hamburgers, pizza, drink soft drinks like Coca Cola, don’t expect to come up with high-quality thoughts and ideas. Besides, every time you reach for the Big Mac while knowing that it’s not what you really want to eat, you train your brain to give in and go for the instant gratification.

As you can see, our actions have a lot more consequences than we’d like to think.

KRISTJAN