iThink...thereFore, iAm

I gave some thought recently to cognitive dissonance (see a previous post if you want to find out more - there’s a wiki link there), and i wondered on the powers of rationalization of the human mind.

I think very often we face situations where we want to do one thing but are made to do another. Or we know that one path is better but we actually want to take the other path in life, if we are honest to ourselves. Sometimes we do this even though we know one option is the best option. Now the issue at hand here is not so much how to choose the right option, but after a path has been decided upon, how the mind often works after that has been done, and i’m going to relate this mildly (i hope) to the battle between the Spirit in us and the flesh.

I struggle a lot between doing the right/best thing and doing the thing that i really want to do. Sometimes it’s not a moral issue and i could well choose what i want, but in the process i also know that it would not have been the best choice i can make. It’s easier when it’s actually a moral issue that i can tell myself “this is right, and this is wrong” and there really isn’t much to decide upon. But when it’s between a “hard path” and a “not-so-hard path” sometimes i’d actually decide to take the hard path because i know it’s the best choice, even though what i want is at the end of the other path.

Don’t give me that look - i know you struggle with it too! And of course at other times we’d also take the easier path because we want what is at the end, even though we know that it’s not the best path.

I think there are times that we can decide on something first, and then later rationalize our thoughts to convince ourselves that we made the best choice - and i think this is dangerous, particularly because i like to gather evidence and theorize everything out because i choose something. Take the purchase of my current laptop for example: i deliberated over it for a good 7 months because taking the (not so deep) plunge in buying it. I did the same for my iPhone for a year. I bought it with no regrets, and i enjoy every moment using it and the convenience of each. But i can’t help but wonder if i’ve just convinced myself that i want to use it therefore it has been a good purchase - that i’ve rationalized my decision to make me feel like i didn’t make a bad one.

I think the danger in doing this is because when we make a bad choice - we have to own up to it. Or when the choice is not ours to make and we have to acknowledge that. I think rationalization to convince ourselves is particularly dangerous because we often don’t see it, and in the process we’ve stuck ourselves to that mindset, never letting go. And then sometimes because we’re so convinced of it, we try to bend other people to think the same way as we do - sometimes with deliberated intentions, i’d think - but often because we believe so strongly that what we think is the absolute right that we’re eager for people to join us in our thinking. I know i’m guilty of this many times over.

But back to the point about rationalization - i wonder at my prayers sometimes. When i ask for something i pause to think: have i already left God out of the equation? And when i get what i asked do i tell myself that i have been right in that? And when i don’t get it i tell myself “that wasn’t God’s will for me”? All these are permissible thoughts and actions and reactions, but i can’t help but wonder if they actually highlight something else inside me. When i say “that wasn’t God’s will for me” do i actually mean it or am i just trying to convince myself that i do?

And right now i have the feeling that a lot of us say just that, to keep up appearances. Well maybe we do and maybe we don’t - I can’t speak for everyone, and i know there are people who are really that surrendered in their lives, but i also know personally that if i were to say that now i would be just trying to convince myself that i believe that, and making people think that i really do.  That’s where the dissonance here comes in: i do believe in a plan for me (as said in Jeremiah), but somehow i am not intellectually convinced of that, and it makes me uncomfortable. (And if anyone can help with this i will quite literally be eternally grateful!)

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All that being said, because i’m a thinker, i also have to admit that some things you just can’t think through, and sometimes this is what pains me - because everything seems so logical, so natural in process…and yet it backfires right back at you and hits you where it hurts the most.

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And to end off this really random post, a funny quote!

“I used to think the brain was the most amazing organ in the body. Then i realized who was telling me this.”