Thinking on Paper: A life potion

Thinking on paper seems more like an activity that has to do with examinations or essay writing. What good could it do in our daily lives? After all, writing is just another form of expressing, isn’t it? Or is there more to it? Can it help us in our daily lives in any way? Let’s find out cogently!

Think about it, when you wonder about different situations, dreams, make imaginary arguments or statements, it is easier than writing the same on a piece of paper. The very act of writing creates a space between you and the question or the problem. Now, these questions or problems could be about life, people, business or professional career dilemmas or even yourself.

Be it a personal, financial or family problem; when you write down, you are bound to be more factual, accurate, realistic and articulate exactly what is happening. In this space between you and the problems, the solutions get the room to grow.

But sometimes, it gets difficult to even acknowledge that some problems exist. So how could one write them down? Or even a better question is, when should one write?

Find yourself blaming others/circumstances for your problems:

One finds themselves in this situation either after realizing that they’ve failed to do what they could have done or acted hastily instead of doing what they should have done. Blaming the field of education on realizing that it’s not helping you earn as you’d like, blaming the laws of the country one makes their living in or even blaming the traffic for their daily woes! The list of blames is not the hardest one to be filled.

When you find yourself reciting even one of these, it’s time to get things on paper.

Tending to expect circumstances or other people to change for your problems to be solved:

The hopes that begin with ‘one day’ are dangerous. Not because they can never come true but rather the torment they put an individual into, which often paralyses them out of action and their full potential. Honestly, passive hope never has and never will improve human circumstances.

It’s best to take a note of statistics down when the one-day hopes start ceasing your mind. The passive hope of everything turning automatically peaceful, receiving that attention one day from a person that you badly crave for, hoping for acceptance from an organization; they all kill you every minute with their uncertainty. All of them are strong indicators to get your act together and articulate your finds.

How should one implement ‘thinking on paper?’

Analyse the written like a scientist:

Just as a scientist in a typical biological laboratory examines the specimens under the lens of a microscope, you can do the same for your writings. The scientist does not touch the specimens while viewing them through the microscope, nor is he attached to them in anyways. This helps him see the specimen (the problem) exactly how it is. Neither worse than it is nor better than it is.

That’s exactly what you want to do with the problem you’ve just written about. Is there a sign or evidence of you making it worse than the statistics say? Or is it the other way around, that your enthusiasm or passion is making you think of the situation better than it is? This is the chance to do the most original research on yourself that has never been done before!

Look for the weak points and obstacles; to attack them:

Once analysed, one can’t help but target at the points where they may have been weak. Where one has fumbled up an opportunity or has been consistently triggered and lost it from a certain point. The sacrifices that one missed to put in and the sacrifices one shouldn’t have put in.

Small corrections can dismantle a juggernaut obstacle.

Recording conclusions:

After analysing and taking action, the situation cannot simply stay the same. It’s going to change. Is it always going to be good? There can be no assurance of that. Some actions taken to correct your course can backfire. (Note that, we are only addressing negative outcomes here!) So what’s the point if things can turn worse?

A better question to ask would be, is the change in circumstances better than the abyss of indecisiveness? The answer is a confirmed YES. The very reason you even had to write down the problem indicates that you were being a victim of the torment of indecision. Any change is a step forward.

To sum it up, human memory is not the most trustworthy entity. The effort required to hear, see or read is substantially less than the effort required to think and write it down. The changes can rock your boat in the beginning and sometimes may even be difficult to come to terms with. But the changes are guaranteed. And growth can happen only if there are changes.

These changes can help you get better. Things get better only when you get better. Use the paper not just to write but also to think!