Keanu Reeves, Free Will, and Results-Oriented Thinking

Keanu Reeves, Free Will, and Results-Oriented Thinking

Keanu Reeves's Misguided Message

On June 16th, 2016 Keanu Reeves posted the following message on Facebook:

My friend's mom has eaten healthy all her life. Never ever consumed alcohol or any "bad" food, exercised every day, very limber, very active, took all supplements suggested by her doctor, never went in the sun without sunscreen and when she did it was for as short a period as possible- so pretty much she protected her health with the utmost that anyone could. She is now 76 and has skin cancer, bone marrow cancer and extreme osteoporosis. 

My friend's father eats bacon on top of bacon, butter on top of butter, fat on top of fat, never and I mean never exercised, was out in the sun burnt to a crisp every summer, he basically took the approach to live life to his fullest and not as others suggest. He is 81 and the doctors says his health is that of a young person. 

People you cannot hide from your poison. It's out there and it will find you so in the words of my friend's still living mother: "if I would have known my life would end this way I would have lived it more to the fullest enjoying everything I was told not to!" 

None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an after thought. Eat the delicious food. Walk in the sunshine. Jump in the ocean. Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like hidden treasure. Be silly. Be kind. Be weird. There’s no time for anything else.

At the present time, this post has been shared over 23,000 times and has 54,000 likes. Clearly, Keanu's words resonated with many people. 

Unfortunately, it is a terribly foolish message.

In this post will examine Keanu's mistake through a variety of sources. 

Chazal and Mishlei

Chazal (the Sages of the Talmud) teach: "ha'kol bi'ydei shamayim chutz mi'yiras shamayim - everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven" (Talmud Bavli: Berachos 33b). This means that the only thing in our control is our bechirah (free will). Everything else is "in the hands of heaven" (i.e. the laws of nature and Divine providence). Practically speaking, this means that the best we can do is to focus our thoughts and energy on the decisions we make, and recognize that the results are not in our hands. [1]

This principle is the foundation on which Shlomo ha'Melech (King Solomon) authored Sefer Mishlei (the Book of Proverbs), since it is the foundation of all decision-making advice. The idea is implicit in every pasuk (verse), but it is also stated in explicit terms throughout. For example: "To man belongs the arrangements [of thoughts] in his heart, but from Hashem comes from Hashem" (Mishlei 16:1); "A horse is readied for the day of war, but salvation belongs to Hashem" (ibid. 20:31); "Man's mind plots his path, but Hashem makes firm his footsteps" (ibid. 16:9). In other words, a person's thoughts, and his preparations, and his plans are within his control, but the results are in God's hands (i.e. the laws of nature and divine providence). 

Shlomo ha'Melech also devotes many verses to those who neglect this principle, to their detriment. He emphasizes time and again that it is the fool who looks at things superficially focuses on the immediate results, whereas the chacham (wise man) focuses on the decision-making process and the long-term results. For example: "Wisdom is in front of the man of understanding, but the eyes of the fool are at the ends of the earth" (ibid. 17:24). In other words, the man of understanding concentrates on applying wisdom to the decision that is before him, whereas the fool neglects this wisdom and is preoccupied with the outcomes that are beyond his reach. 

Epictetus and the Stoics

This principle is also the foundation of Stoicism, and is discussed throughout the writings of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. For example, Epictetus begins his Enchiridion (The Handbook of Stoicism) with the following:

Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.  

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with God and men. 

But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed. 

Epictetus is bringing out another benefit which we haven't yet touched upon. Not only will this way of thinking yield better outcomes in the long run, but it is also the key to attaining peace of mind. To the extent that a person feels he can control of external factors, he will be angry and stressed when things do not go his way. The key to avoiding this type of vexation is to always maintain a clear mental demarcation of what is in our control and what is not.

This fundamental Stoic teaching is expressed in the famous "Serenity Prayer," and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve-step Programs:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can, 

And wisdom to know the difference.

The wisdom mentioned at the end of the prayer is the key. Without it, a person is doomed to the folly and frustration of trying to change what he cannot change, and the inability to accept his own limitations and the limitations of his circumstances.

Marshall Sutcliffe and Limited Resources

It wasn't until years after I learned about this principle from Chazal, from Shlomo ha'Melech, and from the Stoics that I was introduced to a name for the opposite mentality. That name is Results Oriented Thinking (or R.O.T., for short). I first heard this term by Marshall Sutcliffe in a Magic; the Gathering podcast called Limited Resources (Episodes #137, 226, and more). 

Results Oriented Thinking is the mistake of retrospectively judging one's actions by their results, rather than by the decision-making process itself. The chacham (wise man) will assess each decision on its own terms, irrespective of how it turns out (unless the results reveal a flaw in his decision-making process). He will recognize that there are factors beyond his knowledge and beyond his control, and that it is possible to make a good decision and still get poor results, or make a bad decision and get good results.

In contrast, the fool who is caught up in R.O.T. (or, as Marshall would say, someone "who is ROTty") will feel that if he got bad results, then he must have made a bad decision, and if the results were good, then he must have made a good decision. Instead of attempting to objectively analyze his decision based on the information available to him at the time, he will allow his mind to be clouded by hindsight bias and will read into his decision-making "shoulds" and "shouldn't haves" based exclusively on how things turned out.

Let us examine this fallacious mentality through a hypothetical scenario. I have a 20-sided die. I make a deal with my friend: either he can bet on the number 1, or he can bet on numbers 2-20. My friend is not a mathematician, but he intuitively senses that his odds are better if he bets on 2-20, so that is what he chooses to do.

I roll the die. Lo and behold, it lands on 1. I win the bet and am happy. My friend loses, and is upset.

This is where we reach the critical juncture which separates the fool from the chacham. If my friend follows this loss by thinking to himself, "I knew I should have bet on 1! If I could do it over, I would have chosen differently" then he is a victim of Results Oriented Thinking - a ROTty fool, as it were. But if he is a chacham, then he will think to himself, "Well, it's too bad that I didn't win, but I clearly made the right decision to bet on 2-20, since that bet gave me a 95% chance of winning. If I had the opportunity for a do-over, I would make the same decision."

And if he is on an even higher level - what Epictetus might call a Stoic chaham - then he won't even be perturbed by his loss, since he is satisfied that he made the right decision and knows that his intelligent decision-making will benefit him in the long run. This type of stoic tranquility can be seen in professional Poker players. They know all of the odds and probabilities, and make their decisions based on the math. For this reason, they can lose hand after hand without losing their calm, since they are confident in the correctness of their decision-making, and in their knowledge that they will profit in the end.

Bingo with Grandma

I encountered another example of R.O.T. last week. My brother and I visited my grandmother at her assisted living facility, and decided to join her for an afternoon of Bingo. There were five rounds of Bingo, and three opportunities to win in each round. The first way to win was by making a single line in any direction (a.k.a. a "classic" Bingo). The second way to win was by making a specific formation (e.g. the letter "T,",the letter "C," a "+" sign, etc.). The third way to win was by getting a "blackout" (i.e. covering every single space on the card).

In the first round I won by getting a blackout. In the second round I won by getting a "C." Then, immediately after getting a "C," I won a third time by getting another blackout. The other players were astounded, and the Bingo announcer remarked that he had never anything like that happen before.

This triple victory earned me somewhat of a reputation among the senior citizens. Several theories were proposed for how I managed to win. One person explained that beginners tend to be lucky; several people told me that my card was lucky; one person even implied that my being a grandson was lucky. And after we left I got a phone call from my grandmother asking me for the serial number on my card, since she believed that she would increase her odds of winning of she used my "winning card."

Privately, I found these explanations to be hysterical. If there is any game in which strategy plays absolutely no role, it's Bingo. Bingo is a game of pure chance. The distribution of numbers on the cards, the order in which the numbers are called out, and who gets which card are all completely random and all equally probable - and yet, these women genuinely believed that my victories were due to some factor that was within my control.

That is Results Oriented Thinking at its finest. It is one thing to retroactively label a decision "good" when the results end up being successful, but it is a different level altogether to label it "good" when there was no decision-making involved in the first place!

And yet, people do this every day: a woman gets stuck in an unpredictable traffic jam caused by an accident and she says, "I shouldn't have gone out today." Someone's flight is delayed due to weather and he says, "I should have booked a different flight." Another person wins the lottery and she says, "I just had a feeling that these were the numbers to pick." A punk teenager engages in reckless behavior, emerge unscathed, and he says, "See? This type of thing isn't dangerous at all!"

This brings us to our next point ...

Why Results-Oriented Thinking is So Addictive

There are a number of reasons why we fall so easily into the trap of R.O.T. For one thing, our brains are evolutionarily hard-wired to look for patterns in the results of our decisions and to modify future behavior on the basis of those results. This is how animals learn to survive in the wild. If a monkey wanders into the lion's den and is nearly mauled to death by a lion, he instinctively learns that "lion's den = death by mauling." Similarly, when he discovers that delicious bananas can be found when the banana peel is removed, he concludes "peeling bananas = tasty treat." Both of these examples of rudimentary learning are made possible by Results Oriented Thinking. Without R.O.T., survival would be impossible.

But while this type of decision-making might be sufficient for animals in the wild, "normal human life" is not that simple. Human decisions involve factors which are far more numerous and complicated. The scenarios are more varied, the benefits and detriments occur on a much longer timeline, and the uniquely human ability to engage in abstract thinking, scientific reasoning, and strategic planning for the future adds layer upon layer of complexity to our decision-making. R.O.T. may be responsible for the learning we do in the first couple years of life, but it quickly becomes obsolete, and detrimental to our survival.

Another reason is that Results Oriented Thinking appeals to our naive, infantile, egocentric world-view. When we do actions which bring about good results, it is easy to feel, "Yes sir! That was all my doing! Look how magnificent, successful, and intelligent I am!" - without analyzing the cause-and-effect relationship between our actions and the result. This reinforces our belief in our own greatness, our sense of entitlement, and the pleasing notion that the world revolves around our desires and rewards us for our brilliance (real or imaginary).

Likewise, there is a sneakily counter-intuitive form of ego-gratification in blaming a bad outcome on one's own poor decision-making, even when one was not actually at fault. Blindly attributing bad results to oneself allows us to maintain the egocentric fantasy of being totally in control, while nurturing the belief that we are guaranteed success next time if we simply do something different. (Of course, this egocentric trend competes with a number of other defense mechanisms - such as rationalization, displacement, projection, denial, etc. - which attempt to shield the ego from taking any blame whatsoever; but in the logic-defying world of the unconscious, it is possible for contradictory trends to be at play simultaneously.)

Lastly, Results Oriented Thinking caters to the superstitious, religious, mystical tendencies in man. We saw how quickly the senior citizens ignored the scientific cause-and-effect of randomly selected Bingo numbers, preferring instead to attribute my success to "a lucky card" or some other supernatural cause. We see how quick certain religious people are to neglect the analysis of their decisions and prefer to content themselves with "explanations" such as, "It was meant to be!" "It was God's will!" "Bashert!" ("It was predetermined/destiny!"). Many occult and supernatural explanations are forms of R.O.T. in disguise, since they negate the world of lawful cause-and-effect and chalk up the outcomes of complex decisions to simplistic single factors which are retroactively labeled "good" and "bad" based exclusively on the results.

I'm sure this doesn't exhaust the list of reasons why R.O.T. is so pervasive and hard to escape, but I hope it provides some insight into the strength of the factors at play here.

The Moral of the Story

We will conclude this post by returning to Keanu Reeves and his Facebook message. While I sympathize with the plight of his friend's mother, and I agree that a person should make every effort to enjoy life and appreciate what one has, this does not mean that person who made healthy choices and ended up with poor results was "wrong," nor does it mean that a person who made unhealthy choices and ended up with good results was "right." Both assessments are the product of Results-Oriented Thinking. His friend's mother's self-castigation of her healthy lifestyle is just as erroneous as his friend's father's self-congratulation over his unhealthy lifestyle.

Keanu's concluding message of "please stop treating yourself like an after thought" would best be served by ignoring his advice. The way to treat yourself right is to devote your thoughts, your energy, and your happiness into your decision-making process, and to let go of the results, which are not in your hands.

[1] See Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam / Maimonides), Responsa #436: Letter to Ovadiah, the Proselyte