“A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.”
Martin H. Fischer
Our desire for certainty is deeply embedded in our psyche. The ability to make decisions on scant information was probably crucial to our survival as a species. But this incredible skill creates hidden obstacles that influence us in ways we cannot see.
As mystics, our ultimate goal is to transform our default way of being from ego to Essence, and that is nearly impossible if we can’t understand and undo our conditioned ways of seeing.
By way of example, imagine these three scenes that might occur in a typical day.
You sip your coffee and read the news, browsing over the headlines and reading what catches your eye. You take in the information, filing away some facts while skimming past others. You’re troubled by an article about a new development project in your neighborhood. You become upset reading the arguments for and against from local Republicans and Democrats. You decide to write a letter to the editor about the proposed development.
You gaze out the window and remember the yard needs attention. Some fence boards are loose, several plants need pruning, and the beds need weeding. You don’t know when to start due to the inconsistent rain you’ve been having. You also feel irritated that your neighbor has failed to trim her trees that are encroaching on your yard. She said she would do this, but her procrastination makes you think she’s putting you off.
You are meeting with colleagues to discuss whether to start a new project. The decision seems clear to you based on the recent success of a similar project. Many in the room agree with you but a minor faction is uncertain and takes up time raising objections. You’ve worked with these people for years and have opinions about their strengths and weaknesses. The meeting ends without a decision, leaving you frustrated.
In each of these scenes, you see yourself as a reasonable person evaluating the situation objectively and making rational decisions. But alongside our conscious thought processes, our brains are constantly filtering information in ways outside our normal awareness. Social scientists have identified dozens of implicit biases that influence us. Here are several that were at play in the three scenes described above.
When you browsed the morning news, your choice of what to read was influenced by the Negativity Bias, which is our tendency to give more attention to potentially harmful events than to positive ones. News organizations use this bias all the time by putting stories about crime, disasters and ominous weather “above the fold.” Your interest in the article on the controversial development may have been sparked by a provocative headline. You also were affected by Confirmation Bias, the tendency to believe information that confirms your pre-existing opinions and to discount information that disproves your current views.
When gazing out the window, contemplating your chores, you were subject to Attribution Error. This is the self-rationalizing view that bad behaviors on your part are caused by circumstances, while the bad behaviors of others are caused by character flaws. Regarding your gardening work, you justify your delay on the inconsistent rain but you attribute the same delay by your neighbor to laziness.
In the meeting at work, you were affected by Recency Bias, the undue weight we give to recent events over prior ones. Because a recent project was successful, you suggested following the same steps for this project and were predisposed to ignore opinions that contradict this plan. When others in the meeting agreed, you saw this as evidence of the strength of your ideas. But it could also be true that they were subject to Groupthink, which is when people seek conformity of views for social harmony or because they want certainty in the face of a complexity.
The implicit biases I’ve just described are universal – you can’t have a human brain and escape their influence. In addition, we each have specific filters based on our life history. In the scenes above, this would include your opinions about news reporters, your neighbors, your co-workers and your political views in general. These filters act as an auto-pilot that guides our decision-making by making assumptions based on past experience.
The complexity of the world will always far outpace my ability to fathom it. When I catch myself sounding self-righteous, I try to remember that this is the voice of ego, that Essence has no need for adamancy.
To help remind me, I’ve adopted a motto: consider your opinions a loosely held working draft of reality. Yes, I have opinions, and I use them to make decisions. But conclusions are meant to be waystations, not destinations. If I stay open, I might learn something tomorrow that would change them for the better.
photo by Getty Images on Unsplash
My adopted motto, when I see the judgements and conclusions, is: everything is a mystery to me.
I just started ACIM and the first 20 lessons basically underscore what you have written.
Thank you for sharing your journey!
Good motto, I like it. I have read some readings from The Course, but never studied in depth. I should look more into it.