Blog #183--Cause and Effect

Most everyone agrees that actions can produce predictable reactions. We pull on a door and it opens. We hammer a nail and it penetrates wood. We travel at a specific rate of speed and can tell when we will arrive at our destination if we know the exact distance. We can use a match or lighter to start a fire, at least if there is oxygen and combustible material present. As long as we isolate a unique event, we have every reason to believe in the law of cause and effect.

However, our lives are not a compilation of separate events but a continuous pattern. If we were to look at an event like opening a door, we must also consider what occurred prior to that to encourage us to open it, and what happened within our bodies to give us the energy, strength and experience to do it successfully. And what happens after we open the door has significance also.

I first contemplated this when I was five years old. It was a long time ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I was with my mother and father, and I asked them the following question: “Can we go to the amusement park?”

They answered, “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would be dark by the time we arrived, and it would be closed.”

“Why does it get dark?”

“Because the sun goes down, leaving us without light.”

“Why does the sun go down?”

“Because the Earth rotates as it goes around the sun, so when we have light, the land on the opposite side of the Earth is in darkness. When the opposite side sees the sun, we are in darkness?

“Why does the Earth rotate?”

“Enough of this game. We’re not going to the park tonight.”

My parents reached the peak of their knowledge and became too frustrated to continue. I realized that, whatever they answered, I could always ask another question. It was truly an example of infinity messing with our finite minds.

I remember that story when I hear people looking to blame someone or something for negative events in their lives. In my book “It’s a Secret, So Pass It On: a Toolbox For Life,” I give the example of smoking as a cause of specific diseases. While it appears to be true that smoking causes cancer, emphysema, COPD, and vascular diseases, it doesn’t cause these problems in all people. It is incorrect for us to state with certainty that smoking always harms smokers.

We can certainly say there is a strong correlation between smoking and these problems. When I worked as an orderly, a number of my patients with lung cancer admitted to being heavy smokers, so it appeared to be true for them. But some people are more naturally drawn to smoking than others, so there may be a genetic predisposition for this. Perhaps some people are genetically susceptible both to smoking and lung cancer. In such cases, the cause would be genetic for both rather than one causing the other.

Many of us prefer to look at the world as either black or white, one extreme or the other. But it’s the myriad shades of gray that prove that approach unrealistic. Sure, it is harder to say, “Smoking and lung cancer appear to be strongly associated in a large number of cases,” than to make a blanket statement that smoking causes lung cancer. But it would be more accurate.

My father suffered from emphysema and was a heavy smoker, and I have the same problem. So it appears as if smoking caused our problem. But his mother chain smoked 5 packs a day yet lived to be 94. She claimed she didn’t inhale since she would take smoke into her mouth and then force it out her nose without inhaling deeply. But she spent many hours a day in a tiny kitchen closed off from the rest of the house to save on heating costs. The smoking plus a stove that burned coal and corn cobs for cooking created a room filled with secondhand smoke.

Why did she live so long without any lung problems? No doubt her physiology made her lungs capable of withstanding all that smoke, suggesting a genetic aspect. Her destiny was to live a long life regardless of her lifestyle. And like I mention in my book, some people die of lung cancer despite never being around smoke of any kind.

There is a movement to apply the Law of Attraction to daily life...you attract events compatible with your personal world view. Using cause and effect creatively, the suggestion is to produce positive results by visualizing those results. It sounds like a grand concept, and truly those who have positive experiences no doubt had a feeling or vision those events would occur and were thus prepared mentally to accept them into their lives. This is not a new concept, but many have latched onto it as the latest of many similar versions that have come along over time.

The problem is, we can’t force ourselves to think positive thoughts of the future when we are discouraged and suffering from a variety of problems. If we don’t manifest what we desire, maybe it is to teach us lessons we need for future success. What seems like failure today may ultimately lead to success. We don’t need to follow someone else’s directives because we will naturally feel positive and hopeful when we sense a bright future coming along. That is really how this world works. The ego’s version of this phenomenon sounds wonderful and attracts many. But as always, the ego version is a distortion of the truth.

We are part of a continuous chain reaction of events that continues unabated. That is, if this world is real and not an illusion. One must go back to the beginning of time to find the cause of all events. If this world is an illusion, then we may need to throw out the entire concept in favor of something that may better explain what is really occurring. Either way, the concept of cause and effect is not as simple as we wish it to be.

There is an effect for every cause and a cause for every effect. But in most cases, we lack the overall knowledge necessary to determine precisely what causes what. That’s why blame is so counterproductive.

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