The five w’s and a h.

The entire existence of a human is boiled down to thought- let me elaborate. Everything that any human does starts with a thought. One needs to think and act upon the thought. Our thoughts revolve around the five w’s and a singular H; who, what ,when, where, why and how.

The issue with the action is the intent behind it. One could act upon the thought based on a vision of the future or act on it based on the vision of the past. Action on the thought based on the memory of the past is influenced by emotion. Emotion is the end product of past experience. It is basically inherent bias in any action taken on thought that is based on the past. One can argue that the past teaches us not to make the same mistake i.e not take the same action. However the end result of that particular situation is based on multiple variables which might not be true for the current situation. What do I mean ? One needs to acknowledge the past and all of its variables and also acknowledge the action taken and the end result- truly acknowledge. For the current situation; while appearing to be exactly the same will always be different- you are different. It is not the same you. The equation is not the same because some variables will change, the biggest change is you. You are not the same.  This simple concept is lost on us. Our inherent bias. When we look back most of us will look at the situation and ask the question “why” ; a why is a cry for some justification as to how things panned out in that particular situation. We look and rationalise based on an emotional response to the why; we also might make up a story that would perfectly rationalise the situation and the outcome. Chances are that the story is false and is based in false memories of the situation.  The other question that is possible is “what”; what could you have done differently for a different outcome. This is a more important question; to truly answer the question requires an honest assessment of the situation; there will be no basis , no fake or false storytelling that rationalises the outcome, rather honest assessment. 

The five w’s and the h, all are important techniques of learning from the past. We tend to only look at the why; if we have to analyse, the better question is what. Once we have an answer to the what we can then progress and look at the four others w’s and the singular h. 

Start with the what and then progress; it’s the best way to eliminate any inherent bias and truly learn from the past. 

C