#96. Intentionality

Are we living intentionally in the modern world? Are we sure that our decisions are indeed our own? I have a feeling that in today’s world, that we can never be 100% sure that is the case.

In this week’s article, we analyse this issue in depth. We discuss an under-appreciated facet of modern life, which is intentionality.

The busier you are, the more intentional you must be.

– Michael Hyatt

The human race has been blessed with a number of blessings, as I am sure most of us will agree with. The biggest gift of them all that we have been given is the gift of consciousness, which allows us to be aware of our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. This gives us the ability to think about, analyse and alter all of the above to aid our attempts to have the good life. We proudly sit atop the food chain, as a result of being endowed with these mental faculties.

However, there is one human ability that has played a paramount role in our ability to reach, and sustain our spots at the top of the food chain. I am referring to intentionality.

What does intentionality mean, you ask?

It is the ability to humans to choose our own thoughts, feelings and behaviours. There are roots of this phenomenon in biology, psychology, philosophy, religion and any other field of study or practice that talks about the human brain.

For as long as we have gained consciousness, we have been able to decide what we want to think about, how we want to process our thoughts and what actions we will be taking as a consequence of our thoughts.

This might sound abstract, but this is the basis of all personal development theories.

Now, whether we actually do choose our thoughts, feelings and behaviours is another question completely, because anyone who has experienced the technological advancements will agree that we are slowly surrendering this ability to smarter devices, which enables us to view content personalised to us as consumers. At some point in the recent past, I am sure most of us have come across the term “algorithm”, which now governs what we see on our devices.

It is interesting that these devices which humans intentionally created to make our lives easier, are the same devices which are making us lose this critical faculty. However, it is not just devices that are limited to this alteration behaviour. The apps that sit pretty on these devices are now relying more and more on our ability to constantly be on auto-pilot mode and thereby influencing us to take decisions that we wouldn’t normally take.

Now that was just technology, what if I told you that the marketing of everything is also more oriented to sub-conscious probing than just highlighting the benefits and pricing of products? Colour schemes, video orientation, subliminal messaging are all now an essential part of marketing products in a way make us more prone to circumventing our intentional decision making process.

Long story short, the more we let go of our intentional thinking, the more likely it is that we will make decisions that are being externally pushed to our brains.

Sounds dystopian almost, doesn’t it? If you read my previous article, Outsourcing, you would know that I ended it by asking a question along similar lines, which is can we afford to lose our critical thinking abilities? Well, I heard the answer loud and clear, and the answer is, no. So, where do we go from here? How do we protect our intentional thinking capabilities from becoming an extinct thing of the past?

Well, it starts with one thing, which is pausing. I have written about this facet in the past as well, which you can read about here. Pausing before making decisions is something that has prevented me from making a number of bad decisions.

How does that happen?

That happens because pausing allows us to move to the next step of intentional decision making, which is reflection. Of course, I have written about reflection in the past on a number of occasions, and you can read about one of them here. Reflection allows us to ask the fundamental questions: whether I need to make this decision? If so, does that have to be right now? If so, is my default decision the right decision.

And finally, the last step in the process is making a decision, and then sticking to it. Not falling for the trap of novelty is a great way to maintain intentionality, and consequently, getting closer to what we call the good life.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂