Reversing The Causality

Many things in life work in reverse of how they're commonly perceived. Take this classic Chuck Norris joke for instance:

I heard that when Chuck Norris does a pushup he doesn't push himself up; he pushes the world down.

My suggestion is that whenever you're stuck or confused about anything, try to reverse the causality. Things might start to make sense and you might move past whatever was blocking you. You might even get a funny joke out of it.

To take a personal example, I currently feel uninspired. Work is a little rough, my dating life suffered a recent loss, I feel like I'm losing strength instead of gaining it, and my chess performance has noticably suffered over the last few years; I'm not taking care of myself: I'm barely brushing my teeth once a day, I'm lucky if I floss every other day. I'd love to feel inspired to work on reversing the course for all of these, but I know deep down that inspiration does not precede action. I have the causality backwards: action precedes inspiration.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work. – Stephen King