Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Gardening, Scotland | Tags: asperger's, autism, choice, commitment, est, integrity, Werner Erhard
I woke today to a beautiful morning, a gardening day except that I am not going to be here to garden. I checked the weather forecast and tomorrow looks as if it’s going to be a nice day in Glasgow, I shall be in Edinburgh. Neelam and I are going to have a couple of days in Edinburgh, a break from the family and we’re going to see the Mavericks. We have prearranged this and committed to it, and I would like to do my garden.
One of my favourite quotes from Werner Erhard is, “All there is to do today is what you get to do today.” Today I am getting to go and see the Mavericks. “How do you know what you chose?” Werner used to ask, his answer, “Because it’s what you got!” We choose to do things and then make up reasons, which may be valid, to justify our choice, but the reasons don’t really matter what matters is that we are responsible for, we own, the choice we have made.
If we are going to make choices it is perhaps best to make them consciously. I find the Cartesian Coordinate questions, used in NLP to determine the ecology of a course of action, generally useful in decision making. The four questions to apply to one’s possible alternatives are: What will happen if I do it? What will not happen if I do it? What will not happen if I don’t do it? What will happen if I don’t do it? As you can see these questions compel one to consider the consequences of one’s actions, particularly useful for people with Asperger’s because considering consequences does not come naturally to many of us. It is useful to develop a decision making routine whose strategy includes the Cartesian Coordinates.
The other main tool of choice I use is, again a set of quadrants with two axes: urgency and importance; thus the quadrants are: non urgent/not important , urgent/not important, non urgent/important, and urgent/important. Obviously the choices that are both urgent and important take priority, however some important activities can be put off for less important, but more urgent things. Sorting my garden is much more important than seeing the Mavericks, however my garden is a long term project, whereas the Mavericks will have moved on somewhere else tomorrow, so I have chosen to see the Mavericks.
Which brings us to two other aspects of choice, commitment and passion. Passion is a motivator, I am going to see the Mavericks because I really enjoy their music and their performances and so does my wife. The commitment I made to go to the Mavericks lives in the greater commitment I have to making my wife happy which lives in my commitment to having a great relationship with my wife, which lives in my commitment to myself and the universe to live the best possible life for me.
Why am I going to the Mavericks? Because I choose to! The rest is story.
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