“When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves” ~ Confucius
What does this actually mean?
It is very easy to notice what we dislike in another person. We see their behaviour, attitude or way of responding and immediately form a judgement.
Confucius asks us to do something different.
Instead of looking only at the other person, turn the question back towards yourself.
Why does this person affect me?
What am I reacting to?
What might this situation be showing me about myself?
This does not mean accepting poor behaviour or assuming that whenever someone behaves badly the problem is somehow ours. It means being willing to examine our own reaction rather than focusing entirely on the other person.
Sometimes the person who challenges us most can also teach us something about ourselves.
The Cheyenne Contrary Society
This quotation has always reminded me of something from my own Native American heritage.
Within Native American traditions there are different teachings about seeing and experiencing the world in a contrary way. Among the Lakota, the Heyoka is associated with doing or seeing things differently, sometimes behaving in ways that appear opposite to what would normally be expected.
The Cheyenne also had their own traditions of Contrary behaviour.
You may remember the film Little Big Man, starring Dustin Hoffman. There is a memorable scene involving a Contrary who rides his horse backwards.
It is amusing, but there is a deeper idea behind it.
The Contrary challenges our normal way of seeing the world.
If everybody is looking in one direction, what happens if we look the other way?
If everybody believes the answer is obvious, what happens if we question the obvious?
If our instinct is to blame the person standing opposite us, what happens if we turn inward and examine ourselves?
Sometimes wisdom comes from looking in the opposite direction.
Coyote and Trickster Wisdom
Coyote and Trickster stories often work in a similar way.
The Trickster disrupts certainty. He turns situations around, breaks expectations and sometimes makes us uncomfortable.
Why?
Because seeing something differently can reveal something we couldn’t see before.
When somebody’s behaviour troubles you, the obvious question is:
“Why are they behaving like that?”
The Contrary question might be:
“Why am I responding like this?”
Or:
“What is this situation showing me?” Or, “What is this opportunity that is being shown to me right now?” Granted difficult in the heat of an argument at that moment in time.
You may ultimately decide that the other person’s behaviour really is the problem. Reflection does not mean abandoning judgement or common sense.
But you have at least looked in both directions.
The Logical Mind and the Reflective Mind
For the logical thinkers amongst you who still don’t quite get it, there is another way of looking at this.
Our brains display different patterns of electrical activity. Beta brainwave activity is commonly associated with alertness, concentration and active mental processing. Alpha activity is more strongly associated with relaxed wakefulness and a quieter, more reflective state.
Sometimes we need Beta.
We need to concentrate, analyse the information and work through a problem.
But have you ever concentrated on a problem for so long that you seem to go around in circles?
Then you stop.
You go for a walk. Have a shower. Sit quietly. Do something completely unrelated.
And suddenly an idea appears.
The problem hasn’t changed.
Your relationship to the problem has.
This is one reason I have always found the distinction between focused thinking and more relaxed, reflective thinking interesting.
Left Brain, Right Brain, Masculine and Feminine
Older psychological, NLP and personal-development models often described this in terms of the left and right brain.
The left was associated with logic, analysis, language and structure. The right with imagination, intuition, creativity and seeing the bigger picture.
Some psychological and spiritual traditions have also used these symbolically as masculine and feminine qualities: the masculine associated with structure and analysis, the feminine with intuition and creativity.
Modern neuroscience gives us a more complex picture.
Creativity does not simply live in the right side of the brain, nor does logic belong exclusively to the left. Masculine and feminine are not literal neurological properties of the two hemispheres.
But as a metaphor, I still find the idea useful.
Sometimes we need to analyse.
Sometimes we need to imagine.
Sometimes we need structure.
Sometimes we need intuition.
Wisdom may come from knowing when to stop using one approach and try another.
Einstein and Thinking in Pictures
Albert Einstein provides another fascinating example of looking at a problem differently.
Einstein was known for using imagination and thought experiments rather than relying on words and equations alone. He would picture a situation in his mind and ask what would happen.
One of his most famous thought experiments began with an extraordinary question: what would happen if you could travel alongside a beam of light?
Imagine looking at your watch and seeing 12 o’clock. Now imagine travelling at an enormous speed and asking what your watch would show compared with a clock belonging to someone who had remained behind.
Questions like these helped Einstein explore the relationship between light, movement, space and time.
The important point for me is not the physics. It is the way he approached the problem.
He changed the frame.
Rather than simply trying harder to solve the problem from the same position, he imagined himself inside it and looked at it from an entirely different perspective.
This connects with an idea I have long used in NLP and coaching. Sometimes we cannot find a solution while remaining in the same state and frame of mind in which we experience the problem.
Beta brainwave activity is commonly associated with active thinking, concentration and focused mental processing. Alpha activity is more associated with relaxed wakefulness and reflection.
Sometimes we need focused analysis. At other times we need to step away, relax and allow imagination and a different perspective to enter.
That is also where I see the connection with the Contrary.
Turn the problem around.
Look at it backwards.
Put yourself somewhere you haven’t stood before.
Then ask a different question.
Change the Frame
There is a similar principle within NLP and coaching.
If the way you are thinking about a problem keeps producing the same answer, change the frame.
Look at the situation from another perceptual position.
Ask a different question.
Change your state.
Step outside the problem rather than repeatedly examining it from exactly the same position.
A quotation widely attributed to Einstein expresses the idea well:
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
Whether Einstein actually used those exact words is uncertain, but the principle remains useful.
Sometimes you cannot find a solution while remaining entirely within the frame in which you experience the problem.
And that brings us straight back to the Contrary.
Turn it around.
Look at it backwards.
Ask the question nobody else is asking.
The Wisdom of the Fool
There is an interesting parallel in Western literature, although it comes from a very different tradition.
Shakespeare’s Fool in King Lear can say things that other characters cannot. Through humour, contradiction and observation, he reveals truths that supposedly wiser characters fail to see.
Because of his position as the Fool, he can challenge Lear and speak uncomfortable truths that others might not dare to say.
His foolishness is not a lack of wisdom. In many ways, it is what allows his wisdom to be heard.
I am not suggesting that Shakespeare’s Fool, the Cheyenne Contrary or the Lakota Heyoka are the same. They come from very different cultural traditions and have very different meanings.
What interests me is the common invitation to look beyond the obvious.
Sometimes the person who appears to be looking at the world differently can see something that everyone else has missed.
Sometimes contradiction makes us question our assumptions.
And sometimes wisdom comes from looking at a familiar problem from an unfamiliar direction.
Turning Inward
This brings us back to Confucius.
The next time somebody irritates, challenges or disappoints you, you can still decide that their behaviour is unacceptable.
But before stopping there, try turning the question around.
Ask yourself:
What exactly am I reacting to?
Why does this matter so much to me?
Does this remind me of something in myself or my own experience?
What assumption am I making?
What would this situation look like from the other person’s perspective?
What would happen if I looked at the problem from the opposite direction?
What might I learn from my reaction?
You may arrive at exactly the same conclusion.
Or you may discover something you hadn’t seen before.
That is the value of reflection. It is also at the heart of my approach to reflective coaching, creating the space to step back, question our assumptions and see a situation differently.
Sometimes we don’t need another answer.
We need another question.
And sometimes changing the question changes everything we are able to see.
’til we meet again,
Walk in Peace;
Walk in Beauty.
Johnathan
