In the context of the work environment, sometimes

Thinking takes place on at least three levels: autonomic, reactive and deliberative. Each involves a specific process that the brain goes through to effect targeted and desired outcomes. While the first two are done without conscious effort, deliberative thinking cannot be done without it. Any one who has tried knows how demanding and draining it can be. It's a process that many of us have a hard time staying in long enough to produce anything different from what we think we already know. Often, at the beginning of the process of deliberative thinking, we shut it down by saying to ourselves, "I already know that!" This causes the mind to close and interest to wane. When this happens any curiosity we may have regarding the truth about ourselves and the universe does not stimulate us sufficiently to use our minds in the necessary ways to obtain it.

In the context of the work environment, sometimes the work we do doesn't require us to think in order to perform our daily tasks. We are instructed (trained) how to perform our responsibilities and are judged simply by how well we do them. Nothing beyond doing our jobs is requested of us.

Sometimes the work we do requires us not to think in order to do it well. We're told that we're not paid to think, just to do our jobs the way we are told to do them. Anything beyond that is unwelcome input. Consequently, many people do not use their ability to think in ways that move them into greater realms of opportunity, creativity and productivity. If it's not going to get us anything except a reprimand or a pink slip, why try to think more than we need to?

What about the places where we're supposed to learn how to think and the benefits of regularly doing so? Even though most educational systems make noble attempts to instruct students in the ways of thinking well the daily routine and mechanics of teaching eventually overwhelms the best intentions of educators and administrators alike. Students exit from "the system" with some valuable information but not a very clear understanding of how to knit it all together into a meaningful whole that has beneficial ramifications for both the students and the societies in which they live.

Most of what we do on a daily basis doesn't involve much in the way of our brainpower. Routine and habit are shortcuts to action without thinking. They're what you do when you're not thinking about what you're doing. So, why think?

The Purpose of Thinking

The Seventeenth Century French Philosopher, Rene Descartes began his exhaustive investigation into the meaning of life with what to him was the only undeniable fact of life: the human ability to think. The Cartesian method of philosophical inquiry was revolutionary because it was the first to use shared concrete, everyday experiences of life, like thinking, to construct an understanding of the meaning and significance of human existence. Descartes' dictum, "Cogito, ergo sum," (I think, therefore, I am) was a whole new way of thinking about life by grounding it in thought.

If Descartes is correct that because I can think I therefore exist as a human being, then the question arises, "if I know that I am, is this the same as knowing who I am?" The answer is no. Just because I know I exist doesn't mean that I know much about myself. Your ability to think gives evidence that you "are." The task of actually thinking is to learn "who you are" and how you can "be the Self" you were born to be.