[Learning] Observe, and understand first.

It's a very interesting and shockingly true line that I learned from On Strategy : What Managers Can Learn from Philosophy - PART 1. It's actually quote from Francis Bacon. This idea coincides with what I read from other books.

So what does it mean? Example from the professor said: If you want to be good at thinking, you must first understand how thinking works. Not until we realize our thinking system goes to shortcut - instinct- so often that the decisions may be biased, can we focus more on rational thinking deliberately. If you know it's impossible to get rid of emotions to be reasonable, you may start the conversation of the positive and negative emotions, and how they have impacts on our decision.

Another example: If you want to fix an education system, you must understand how learning and education works. Recently, I have read Creative Schools, written by Ken Robinson, in which he clearly pointed out the understanding that we need to have, if we want to change.

"To do that, we need three forms of understanding: a critique of the way things are, a vision of how they should be, and a theory of change for how to move from one to the other."

The beauty of philosophy, for me, is it can adapt to almost every situation. Meanwhile, the line itself is so simplified. Next time you want to change something or be good at something, it would be enlightening to remember this line. You need to obey the forces you want to command.