The Four Thinking Lessons That Changed My Marriage, My Work, and My Mind
What I learned from The Thinker's Way and why we've been trained not to think
In this article, you’ll learn...
Why seeing the world from your perspective is only one of thousands of possible perspectives, and why true wisdom requires seeing more
How bad thinking has become so normalized in our society that we don’t even recognize it anymore
The hidden ways our non-thinking culture shows up in everyday behaviors like complaining, blocking people online, and defending positions without examination
Why criticizing your thoughts isn’t negative, but the refinement process that produces your best work.
Explore how reasoning serves as a bridge between your inner self and the divine, clarifying the spiritual significance of thinking.
On December 12th of this year, I finished The Thinker’s Way by John Chaffee, PhD. As you all know, this book has changed my life because I’ve talked about it so much.
I feel so much clearer. My mental process is so much better. My spirit feels like a blissful experience. I definitely recommend the book if you want to read it.
The biggest lesson I learned from The Thinker’s Way is how to think. This shift has transformed my work, marriage, and daily life. I now think through many things more thoroughly.
I’ve realized that thinking helps quiet the ego. It transforms and refines it.
Having this practice of thinking through things and not just going with the first idea, but questioning things, has been completely phenomenal.
As I reflect on this book, I’d like to share a few lessons with you all.Note that this will also lead to a series of works we’ll do regarding thinking.
Thinking is a very metaphysical act, and we’ll explore how it intertwines with spirituality. When thinking and spirituality are connected, it offers rejuvenation and revitalization to the human condition.
Personally, I feel called to this work. More on this in future pieces.
But, without further ado, let’s dive into the four core lessons I’ve learned from The Thinker’s Way.
Lesson One: You See the World from Your Perspective—That Is One Perspective
This piece is simple, sound, and important: you always experience the world from your perspective, which is just one of many. There are thousands of perspectives.
What I’ve come to realize is that true wisdom, wisdom defined as the application of knowledge for good, is when we are able to see multiple perspectives on things.
This is why whenever there are ideas or stories, yes, we can look at the conservative or liberal view, but we also need to look at the entire picture.
This is the premise behind my article on the 3 Key Methods to Decode Official, Conspiracy, and Unorthodox Narratives. There are so many perspectives, and we need to be able to see multiple perspectives on things.
You have your view, and your experiences and information have shaped it. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right way; it’s just one perspective among many, and you must gather as many as you can to see the world accurately.
Lesson Two: Bad Thinking Has Been Normalized in Our Society
We have so much bad thinking in our society that it’s been normalized. This was an eye-opening lesson.
In the book, one of the things that made this stick was the idea that thinking and communicating are reflections of our thought process. In our speaking and writing, if we cannot communicate appropriately, it means we haven’t thought about the subject appropriately.
However, in our world, communication has just been disregarded. Bad English is everywhere. Vague English is everywhere. It’s normalized. This is just one example of how bad thinking has infiltrated our society, and it’s not getting any better.
Bad language, bad talking, all reflect bad thinking. The sad part is that this daily act of bad communication does not reflect a society inhabited by a high-level species. What we’re witnessing is the dumbing down we’ve been subjected to.
We used to be this literary species that had the arts, had the music, and could transform the world. But over the last 200 years, we have been intentionally dumbed down. This is what I talk about in my book, The Origins of Modern Education, and in my article Who Taught Us How to Think? Since we don’t think, it reflects in our society.
And since thinking helps control our egos, our society builds on our egos and grows them making them larger than before, further eliminating thinking.
Trolls and the Internet
I’ve always wanted to write an article about trolls and the internet— and now looks like the perfect time.
We have to realize that there’s so much bad thinking in our society, and that has horrendous results.
Lesson Three: We Live in a Non-Thinking Society
We do things daily that reflect a lack of thinking. One example I’m working with right now is complaining.
Why are we complaining? Society has told us to let our feelings be known. Let’s hear your opinions, especially when they haven’t been thought through or revisited.
But what happens is you’re letting people’s opinions and ideas be known that haven’t been validated.
One example I talk about in my article Blocking People Is Stopping Your Personal Growth is this: when you block someone because they have a different perspective, how are you going to get another perspective? This is one example of society, particularly grown adults, complaining, chronically venting, and reflecting the lack of thinking.
Another example: when we argue with people, we often take an initial stance and defend it because it’s one we’re more aligned with or inclined toward. But how do we know that this is the right stance? Have we taken the time to evaluate the other stances as well? There are other perspectives on things.
In our society, these behaviors are not seen as problematic. What is normalized is taking this stance, riding it, and holding onto it as much as possible. But that is bad thinking.
It’s okay to change your ideas. It’s okay to have a new opinion. We don’t have to listen to every opinion. As Chaffee says in his book, some opinions are better than others. We should listen to some arguments versus others.
These are the ideas of a thinking society. We should debate. We should have time to listen to each other’s points. But unfortunately, this is what has been removed from society, and you can see why. Thinking is spiritual, and spirituality has been removed. Society has devolved.
This is why we need to bring thinking back.
Lesson Four: We Need to Criticize Our Thoughts
When I say ‘criticize our thoughts,’ I mean our thoughts need to be sharpened. The idea behind “criticize” is positive. It’s to sharpen, to be critical, to refine, to ensure that the product you give is the best product out there.
We need to criticize, discern, and see things from other perspectives. We can’t do that unless we take the time to learn and observe.
One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in my writing journey is that creativity thrives with constraints. It’s easy to just let raw emotion come out, but to get to the true essence, you have to refine it.
Just because you have several thoughts on a topic doesn’t mean you should pick the first one. Some thoughts are good, some are not. Refinement is necessary. We need to criticize our thoughts. I have made this a regular practice.
The Art of Reasoning: Where Thinking Meets Spirituality
Thinking is an inherently spiritual process, connecting our inner sense of meaning and purpose with our capacity for reflection.
As we’ll learn more about in upcoming articles, in our modern world we’ve often outsourced the art of thinking to religion, which provides a moral compass and shapes our beliefs, thought it may be limiting, or to public education, which we’ve mentioned influences how we understand the world.
At its core, thinking is a way for our inner essence to express itself, and that essence has spiritual dimensions. However, this inner voice can be shaped by beliefs and experiences, influencing our spiritual understanding.
Ultimately, thinking is the language of our soul. It’s our innermost truest source, but is pulled in many directions, as I’ve talked about in my earliest works Don’t Believe Everything You Think. This is why we must refine it, to ensure we know what our soul is saying, to ensure our language is as accurate as it can be.
From this thinking journey, I’ve been enlightened about something else: the art of reasoning.
What I’ve realized after being exposed to The Sacred Art of Logic and then going through The Thinker’s Way is that reasoning is the ability to criticize our thoughts, to sharpen them. And as I’ve stated, when you look at logic, there’s a spiritual nature here.
For those who really want to dive into the spiritual nature of things, in my personal manifesto on reality, I discuss the reasoning aspect and the idea of God as the Divine Mind.
All revelations throughout history about God are internal, as is the case in modern times.
More to come on this, as this is what we’ll be discussing in this series, but this is what we see behind the art of thinking.
Whenever we apply logic, whenever we apply reasoning, whenever we look at different perspectives, we begin to undergo the process of enlightenment in our mental spaces. We can see multiple perspectives. We can see the true beauty of a thing. We can see how nature comes together. We’re able to identify the fallacies, call them out, and remove these problems.
As nature has called us, as the Bible states, we have been called to be the “salt of the earth,” to purify the earth. One of the greatest skills and abilities to do so is the art of thinking and the art of reasoning.
Where This Work Is Going
This is where my work is going to take us. Everything I’ve been doing has been identifying and discerning false narratives. These fallacies have resulted from intentionally dark thinking that has infected our society. Read my article on Democide and Menticide to learn more.
It’s time that we reverse course. It’s time that we begin to focus inward, on ourselves.
I would argue that thinking is one of the greatest processes to do that. As we sharpen our thoughts, we sharpen our minds. As we sharpen our minds, we sharpen our actions. As we sharpen our actions, we sharpen our worlds.
To close, another lesson I learned is that we should be mindful of the consequences of our thoughts and judge them accordingly. I’ve touched on this in my article, The Only Truth That Matters Is The Truth You Can Live With.
When we can exemplify the power in our consequences and actions, it forces us to examine our thoughts and ensure our soul, our true essence, has a clear path forward.
I have a few more topics to write about this, such as
Reasoning as the language of the Gods
How Religion has eliminated our Reasoning
The Three Voices in Our Heads, and
Why we should be a Thinker versus a Judge.
This will be the series we work on thinking. Some free, others paid. This article is the first kickoff for that.
If you want background on thinking and how we got here, check out my articles on Understand Logic, Reasoning, Logic as a religion, and more, listed as Recommended Reading. These pieces show how this mental process is a conversation between your soul and the divine.
When we have this conversation of thinking, we tie in our ego, soul, and spirit, and if we think properly, we literally transform the ego with the spirit and the soul.
More to come on this piece as it’s truly fascinating.
Takeaways
Your perspective is one of thousands. True wisdom requires gathering multiple perspectives to see the world accurately.
Bad thinking has been normalized. Our degraded communication reflects our degraded thought processes. We’ve been dumbed down over the last 200 years.
Non-thinking behaviors are everywhere. Complaining, blocking people with different views, and defending positions without examination are symptoms of a non-thinking society.
Criticizing your thoughts is refining them. Just like creativity thrives with constraints, your best thinking emerges through the discipline of examination.
Reasoning is spiritual. When we think, we engage in a conversation between our soul and the divine. Thinking transforms the ego with spirit.
Next Steps
Read The Thinker’s Way by John Chaffee. This book will change how you approach every area of your life.
Practice perspective-gathering. Before forming a strong opinion, actively seek out at least three different perspectives on the issue.
Audit your communication. Pay attention to how you speak and write. Vague or sloppy communication reveals vague or sloppy thinking.
Stop defending positions automatically. The next time you find yourself in an argument, pause and ask: “How do I actually know this stance is correct?”
Refine before you release. Whether it’s an idea, a decision, or a creative work—don’t go with your first thought. Criticize it. Sharpen it. Then act.
As always, thank you for your time and attention. Have a great and wonderful day.
—Ashe,
Franklin O’Kanu
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Recommended Reading
If you want to go deeper into thinking, logic, and the spiritual dimensions of reasoning, explore these related pieces:
The Sacred Art of Logic: Why Brilliant People Believe Stupid Things — How to spot sophisticated deception in a world built on false reasoning. The foundation for understanding valid vs. sound arguments.
Logic As A Religion — What happens when you reject the church but still hunger for God. How reasoning becomes the universal language of the divine.
The Divine Conversation: When Logic Becomes Prayer — A raw reflection on how engaging in reason is the most intimate conversation we can have with the divine.
Blocking People Is Weakening Your Personal Growth—Here’s Why — The echo chamber trap and why avoiding disagreement keeps you stuck. Directly connected to Lesson One on gathering multiple perspectives.
Logos in Christian Thought: The Word of God — The historical research behind why early Christian theologians understood logic as the language of God.
If you’re already aware but want to take a step toward becoming the best human you can be, you can check out my guide.
11 Insights for Being The Best Human This 50-page guide is the clearest map I’ve created for navigating the madness of modern life. It blends ancient wisdom, spiritual clarity, and grounded daily ritual — helping you remember who you are and why you’re here.
If the world feels off, this guide will confirm why — and help you take back control.
Want to go deeper on what’s really affecting our physical health?
The Master Reference Guide — A comprehensive, fact-based resource on what’s actually in these vaccinations, what the data shows, and what’s been hidden from public view. Built for those who want the full picture.
The Parent’s Guide to Recognizing Severe Reactions — If you have children that have been vaccinated, this is essential. Learn to identify the warning signs that get dismissed, misdiagnosed, or reclassified. Because knowing what to look for can change everything.
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As an 65 years old psychologist with spiritual background, I can assure everyone that being in the state of the present moment is the only real state of mind. It's a nonverbal state of observation what is reality in the given moment.
That's the only truth existing at all.
Everything else is cleverness.
Thanks for the idea of reading "The Thinker's Way". I will. As long as thinking is evolving, you will not get stuck in think-thought...or what is presumed to be accepted as "the final word" about anything.