The Causes of Action

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire."
Aristotle Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)

Great day yesterday. Got my MRI scan results and was told that my spine was anatomically perfect (yes!!!). Also had my tooth repaired very quickly and then spent a tremendous afternoon working from home, after an award-winning lunch (eba with okro soup). And then there was The Apprentice...

Action is the key. We know that. But what causes action? Well, Aristotle was no slouch, and seemed to cover the most important topics thousands of years ago. The first two causes, chance and nature, appear to be uncontrollable. Compulsion can be shaped by education. Habit is a massive cause - some say 90% of what we do is habitual, so a lot of the strategies away from CSD ("Could, Should, Don't) involve habit. Reason is probably used more as an explanation for actions rather than being a real cause, though some people do act on reason. Passion and desire are probably more causative than reason, in practice.

So by looking at these causes, particularly the powerful ones, we can begin to affect our lives significantly. It would be interesting to monitor some of your actions for a day and classify them as above....