Tip of the day – What you sow is what you reap!

What goes around comes around. Most people know it does. Few believe it will make a difference. They perceive the probability, of the time period between the going around and the coming around being small enough to affect them anytime soon, as being really low. Simply put, the cause-effect cycle time is too high to affect their lives, in a larger sense, as they know it today.

This is neither entirely true nor untrue. To understand that, you need to look at two paradigms of cause-effects that drive behavior and are based on the cycle times involved.

One is the ‘Action-Reaction’ paradigm that represents the shorter cycle cause-effects. To cite some examples, ‘break a traffic rule and get a violation ticket’, ‘if you are unpleasant to someone in a situation, expect that demeanor to be thrown right back at you’ etc. In fact any kind of instant gratification, that is the norm these days, would be this category. This is fairly easy to deal with and understand since it has a near-immediate feedback loop. It helps people to self-correct and avoid (now-known) pitfalls on a constant basis. This paradigm can be dealt with, almost entirely, through knowledge and practice.

The second category is the ‘Choice-Outcome’ paradigm of longer cycle cause-effects. The feedback loops are spread out over a much longer part of one’s life. Examples could be people’s risk-reward profile, health hazards arising out of addictions and abuse, career and life choices etc. The effects of the choices made are unlikely to be known in the short-term and the feedback loop could be, at times, even in several years. This is a wisdom and self-awareness paradigm in contrast to knowledge and practice and is experiential in nature. A lot of wisdom, no wonder, comes from hindsight.

There is no problem when each category is recognized for what it is. The problem arises when we expect desired effects of the ‘choice-outcome’ paradigm in the ‘action-reaction’ timeframe and we see none coming. Or the corollary - concluding on the outcome on the basis of some undesired intermediate effects.

Our behavior is greatly influenced by how we deal with these paradigms. Both are equally important and it is necessary to be in balance. You could easily get lost in day-to-day transactions and miss the big picture focusing overly on the ‘action-reaction’ paradigm. This is about a lot of action without direction. It would be equally bad to only be focused on the ‘choice-outcome’ paradigm because you would be ignoring all the signals and be oblivious to all the experiences that day-to-day life offers to enhance your wisdom and your ability to adapt to a changing environment and most importantly, act on it. This is about all focus on direction with little action.

You don’t see it yet doesn’t mean it won’t come around. What you sow is what you reap. Sooner, or later!