Let’s imagine a sunny day in July. The sky is blue and the sun is shining. You go to a supermarket to shop for some milk and cookies. As you are heading towards the cash registry, you see an old lady get to the cash register just before you. She has a big bag of groceries and you are annoyed for a second that you didn’t get to go before her. Your shopping will just take a minute and hers might take 15 minutes if you include the time taken to find exactly the right change.
What do you do?
What you do, depends on who you are. Most people, like me, would just shrug their shoulders and wait – essentially do nothing. A few people might ask her kindly whether they can get ahead of her. Others might say “HRMPH” as loudly as they can, hoping the old lady will notice and take initiative to let them go in front of her.
I’m sure you can think of a few other options of what to do in this scenario. Go ahead and think of them now.
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No, really do it. Think of other things you or someone else might do in this scenario.
Did you do it? Good …
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Was one of the options you thought of, to unpack the cookies, unload them on the floor, pour the milk over them and then start eating them?
Was one of your options to start screaming “Thief, thief!”?
Was one of your options to call 911 and report that you have ten hats for legs?
Let me answer that for you. No, you didn’t think of those options. Those options are crazy and they have nothing to do with the scenario. But stay with me … they are possible options, however crazy they sound. Right?
So if those crazy options are possible, why didn’t you think of them? My claim in this post is, that it is because they are not in your Thought Framework. Whenever you make a decision, you don’t start from scratch and think of every possible option – you have already experienced similar situations and the few ‘best’ options are presented to you by your Thought Framework. You never consider any other options than those!
Some times you read a book, talk to your friends or experience new things and then expand or adjust your framework. Some times you notice that one of your decisions were bad and adjust your Thought Framework accordingly, so that faulty option will no longer be in there.
The framework is important because you don’t have enough time to really think through every little decision from the ground up. If you did, you would still be standing in that supermarket, considering whether sticking cookies in your ears is a good idea. However, I think it’s important to be aware of the existence of the framework. If you are aware of it, you can some times catch yourself using it to make a decision that might need a little extra thought.
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