Are You Thinking?

Many times, Person A says or does something strange or dangerous and Person B yells out “wasn’t that person thinking?!?!” According to Person B, Person A clearly didn’t think. And I usually respond back to Person B with – “if your IQ is above average (100), possibly Person A was really not thinking. But unfortunately, that is not the main reason people are not “thinking.” The process of thinking is usually put on the back burner in favor of our personal identity characteristics and belief issues.

“When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world.”
Norman Vincent Peale

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”
Albert Einstein

“I don’t fix problems; I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.”
Louise Hay

The process of thinking and making decisions requires the consideration of (all) options and then fairly and evenly judging those options against a set of criteria, and usually the best option rises to the top and there you go; you have thought about it and decided. In which case, the best choice was made obvious.

If that was only the case. In general, regardless of your IQ, your personal identity characteristics and beliefs interfere with the thinking process forcing you to discard many other viable options that conflict with your personal identity characteristics and beliefs. As I point out in my book, ONLY HUMAN: Guide to our internal Human Operating System (iHOS) and Achieving a Better Life, there are some cases where apparently high IQ individuals have made very bad choices in their lives that affect themselves and others. In ONLY HUMAN, our personal identity characteristics is a long list of items, from your name, to the coffee you drink, to the political party you associate with. In most cases these personal identity characteristics and beliefs limit your thinking options, always falling back to the same options – not thinking outside the box, not giving it a fresh look. What does this mean for you? You keep making the same decisions and then wonder why your life does not change for the better.

Then to make matters worse, when someone points out the fallacy with your think process results, your response is usually not about accepting the feedback and adjusting your thinking process and thinking outside the box. You usually respond with defensive behavior and/or anger; not wanting to be wrong. Your motivation to always being right gets in the way of rethinking the problem and making wise decisions. Remember, it is better to do right than be right.

Why do I bring this up now? There are big and important decision-making events coming up. Step outside your box, think through all your options fairly (going beyond your current personal identity characteristics and beliefs) to make decisions based on the greatest good. Let your proper actions speak louder than just your words.