If I knew Then What I know Now

Humans have the capacity to interpret symbols. That is, our capacity to ‘see’ different possible scenarios or outcomes for situations without or before going into the situations. We don’t know what is going to happen, but might, within the realm of possibilities, ‘guess’ the end result. Interestingly, either we don’t practice and take advantage of this capacity, or we simply ignore what could happen when engaging in certain behaviors. We are more inclined to look back, see the outcome of situations and tell ourselves as consolation, “If I knew then what I know now…” More fascinating is when the same mistakes are repeated even thou we know now what I knew then.

Chess with a friend in Kampala, Uganda. 2012

How is this possible? Perhaps, along with the capacity to interpret symbols we have the capacity to create excuses for each one of the outcomes we foresee. Perhaps, we don’t want to pay attention to that inner voice that attempts to warn us that we have been down that road before. That inner voice is trying to make us stop and think. Why don’t we? I think it might have something to do with our capacity to learn and the nature and results of learning.

Martial Arts Tournament. Milford, CT. 2014

Basically, defining learning can take us in different directions. We can say that learning is simply “making sense”. Learning could be also knowing how to do something, or knowing how to explain something. Learning could also be defined as “acquiring knowledge”. Knowledge allows people to be prepared when new situations arrive. Knowledge transforms the way we think and the way we behave. We can talk about motivation, purpose, validation, awareness, mindfulness, inspiration, metacognition, critical thinking, creative thinking, evaluation, memory, and many other paths that will for sure make for very interesting conversations. At the end of it all, how does it help us?

Let’s see the idea of knowing then what we know now from a different angle. How about what to do later what we know now? It is like doing a retrospection towards the future. What if we become transformed by past experiences so in the future we don’t fall victims of the same mistakes? How are we going to respond to similar situations knowing now what we know now? If we really learned from a previous experience, why do we fall again? What is hindering the transformation that comes with knowledge? Are we learning anything at all? Is there something else getting in the way of living free from similar mistakes? We can’t blame ourselves for what we didn’t know, but now that we know, what’s next?

Freedom is in the Heart a Decision Away

Take a walk and observe people. Listen to people. Watch how people live through their insecurities and lack, forcing a persona of who they are not because they feel a need to compensate for how they see themselves. Others are just comparing themselves with people around, trying to focus their efforts in being like someone else. Ask questions and be surprised of how much you can learn of a person based on questions and answers. Pay attention to the answers and you will realize how many people answer to a question different from the one that was asked. See how fear, assumptions, biases, and the interpretations they sustain from experiences brings a lack of identity and the freedom to live who they are, who they are created to be. Sometimes freedom is just waiting. Sometimes freedom is in the heart a decision away.

Israeli-American psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, recognized from his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, and behavioral economics, who was also awarded a Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences in 2002, explores the dynamics of question and answer in his book Think Fast and Slow. I fell in love with this book. I use some of the principles he presents for my Inquiry class. I’ve seen great results on how students become more aware of their own understanding when they examine the question and the answer. Kahneman explains that people often answer a different question from the one was asked because it is easier to answer a question that provides ease of mind that the one that challenges them. A “hard” question is replaced for a question that is “easy” to answer because it removes responsibility from our decision-making process, and places responsibility on others for our condition.

Attribution Theory, in a very similar fashion explains processes in which people explain causes for behaviors and events. Oversimplified, attribution theory explains that an individual will “blame” someone or something outside of their own self for their condition, but “blame” a person’s condition of reasons within the self. In other words, what is happening to me is not my fault but the fault of others and the circumstances surrounding me, but what is happening to you is your own fault. When asked about our own condition, we will find excuses around us, not within us. When asked about someone else’s condition, it is definitely their fault.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is confronted with a situation like this. John 5:1-15 tells:

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.  When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat. ”But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ “ So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

Before I understood Kahneman’s perspective or attribution theory, I was fascinated how this man replied to the simple question: “Do you want to get well?” One might think that after all those years in that condition a person might like to enjoy he freedom that comes with health. This is a close-ended yes and no question, but the answer reveals so much more. Did he hear the question at all? It was so easy to answer a different question, one that was not asked, to place responsibility on others for the condition. Moreover, after Jesus healed him, the responsibility for carrying the mat he was not his. Interesting, right? It is always someone else’s fault. The story doesn’t specify what his sin was. We can play the assumption game and brainstorm some possibilities. If you ask me, I think his sin was his lack of ownership, initiative, and identity. You can infer your own if you will.

How many times do we do the same? How many times we live out of our insecurities and lack of identity to blame people and circumstances for not achieving freedom? There are circumstances where people are not to be blamed for what was done to them, but when freedom is knocking at the door, what is stopping you from taking it? Freedom is in the heart a decision away. Do you want to get well?

Fixing Things as a Way to Compensate for Fixing Themselves

Men enjoy fixing things. Men feel a need to fix things. When not fixing something, men are brainstorming on how fixing something. Men talk as if they knew exactly how to fix something even when they don’t know how to fix that something. Men will convince themselves that they will figure out how to fix something. Interestingly, it seems that men fail to fix themselves. They will try to fix someone else, but not themselves very often. In which ways is it possible that men engage in fixing things as a way to compensate from fixing themselves?

In the movie The Karate Kid (not the old one, but the new one, which still confuses me with the kung-fu thing instead of karate, but that is not important right now), Jackie Chan’s character, Mr. Han, fixes his car through the year to destroy it at one specific date. There is no spoiler. The movie came out in 2010. If you didn’t watch it yet it is not my fault. Mr. Han’s wife and son died in a car accident while he was driving. Every year on that date, Mr. Han gets drunk and destroys the car he has been fixing for a year. It is a very moving scene. Men engage in breaking things very often, too. So many things in society could be so different if men fixed themselves instead of fixing things or breaking things.

Last summer I spent a great amount of time reading and learning about sex trafficking, the victims, the pimps, the men who pay for sex, the trauma, the abuse, the rescuing and treatment of victims, their fallback into the life, and the testimonies of survivors who turned their lives around away from the horrors that come with the experience. It stroke me that the common denominator was a broken man; a man who destroyed the dignity of a child, a man who as a father failed to protect their kids, an absent man, a perpetrator, a man buying sex from underage children, a man buying sex in the streets and online, a man who delights in abusing women and children, a man who won’t think twice to sell or buy another person for personal gain, a man… Even in the healing process of the survivors, a man who could present an example, a role model, a representation opposite to the broken man was not often found.

This summer, I am dedicating a great amount of time to study, learn, and practicing how to reclaim the God-given identity of a man. I am doing this for myself, for my wife, for my kids, for the people I come in contact with, and for the survivors we are going to help recover in the near future. I am too a broken man in need to understand and accept my identity as a man. Looking back I see that broken man, his pain, his flaws, his shortcomings, his scars, his many mistakes, and can see how his identity got lost in a society where very few knew who they are under all the labels they take in their journey.

I am loved by God, forgiven in Christ, restored and guided by the Holy Spirit to show God’s glory. My value as a man, my validation, my affirmation, my morality, my destiny, and my hope are founded in this truth. Do I come with a baggage? You bet! However, my past will no longer define who I am. Society’s labels will not define me anymore. What people think will no longer define me. I learned the secret of victory and freedom in surrender. I gave up on myself. I surrender to God and who he says I am, and his love for me. If I fix something now, I do it for Him, for love, to show his glory, and not to compensate for not being able to fix myself. I let God fix me.

People Places Colors

Where do I come from?

Who am I?

How should I live and relate with others?

Why am I here?

Where am I going?

Recently, I came across five words that serve as the guide for explaining our existence and human experience: origin, identity, morality, purpose, and destiny.  Humans are always searching an explanation for their lives and current circumstances, as well as defining their path for the future. We all want to know where we come from, and use that as the definition of our identity. We identify with people, places, and color, and tend to separate and decide who we accept, respect, slave, and serve. Our identity is not only used to know who we are but as an excuse to know who others are, because they are not the same. Sometimes we are they.

Lives are lived, relationships are built, and behaviors are justified using origin and identity. We often know and recognize (if we are objective and sincere with ourselves) that certain behaviors are hurting us and others, and damaging the image of who we are, and who we could be. The way we live also affects purpose and destiny beyond the now into the future. We justify who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going based on what we believe is our origin, and who we think we are. What if we don’t know enough or our source of information is faulty? What if we are sincerely wrong about who we think we are or we are looking at the wrong identifiers? What if we are using all of these as an excuse to hide our fears and insecurities? What if we are using these things to gain power over others and justify cruelty and mistreatment? What if our difference are ought to be celebrated and not as a reason for separation and division?

Maybe, if we think about it, we could answer the previous questions with these four words: faith, behavior, hope, and knowledge. There is nothing more sad than humans who thinks that the only thing that matters and counts is what they think and nothing else. Even if someone is “right”, it says a lot when you see how others are seen from that someone’s perspective. What we believe, what we expect, how we live, and how we see our reason to exist is a full package that explains and answers the questions we all have. Perhaps, before is too late, we can consider who we are looking beyond people, places, and colors.

Would it be possible for our identities to be founded beyond the physical nature that finds us limited? Would it be possible that the natural world is just a stage to prove a supernatural origin, identity, morality, purpose, and destiny? Would it be possible to assess our faith, behavior, hope, and knowledge and become better humans? Would it be possible to try better relationships as we learn to accept others and their differences? Would it be possible to redirect our purpose and destiny? Would it be possible to live a better tomorrow today?