Two things happening successively or concurrently doesn’t mean one causes the other. For instance, if a business struggles, it is easy to blame the founder or the CEO. However, many factors contribute to a business’s success that are outside one person’s control. At best, it may just be correlation rather than causation.
Like causes lead to like effects. Thus, we need to make accurate attributions for the outcomes we see in our lives. I recall a testimony in a church where someone got promoted at work and attributed it to a gift they had given to the pastor. I rolled my eyes discreetly. This is just a case of correlation, not causation. The gift didn’t cause the promotion. What caused the promotion is that this person’s parents invested in their education for 20 years in some of the best schools around town. This person studied at one of the best universities in the country and also pursued a professional course with many opportunities. They are also hardworking and prudent at work. This is what caused their promotion, not the random gift to a pastor who “prayed” for them.
Since like causes lead to like effects, we can predict and even emulate the successful people we admire. We can study these people and make accurate attributions of their success. Typically, when you look underneath, you find decades of hard work, dedication, failure, persistence, discipline, etc. The culture wants us to believe that becoming successful is easy and only takes a few prayers from our charismatic preacher. However, this is incorrect and is simply a case of correlation, not causation.
Correlations are easy to find and can be misleading. Finding root causes requires some bit of thinking and rigor. If you find root causes, you can solve any seemingly impossible problem. When your car breaks down, don’t blame the president. Instead, call a mechanic to diagnose the problem and then fix the root cause. This is how we should approach life if we are to achieve the things we set out to do.
Remember, just because something happens after another does not mean that one causes the other.
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