I’ve set a goal to remain principled in how I write these posts. I’m suggesting an idea that whatever I say comes from genuine personal experience. In a heavily interconnected world, that isn’t particularly easy to stick to. It’s common to be influenced by others opinions and perceptions, and I am by no means immune to that. Pop culture, social media, and news outlets can bombard us with opinions or narratives, and even the thoughts I’m expressing now may be partly due to that. However, it’s not to say that all influence has to be negative; for us to exist today with the thoughts we share, the principles we hold close and the language/s we speak, we’ve been influenced by all facets of life in a large way. With that being said, I find it’s useful to be mindful of the motives, or even the lack of motive that other people’s ideas can share.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve struggled to finish a post, and I’ve figured this to be somewhat due to the point made above. I had intended to write a couple of these a week. I don’t think I’ll achieve that. You see, the drafts I’d written were starting to lead more towards hot topics of the day. These could be useful to write about; interesting too. However, my ideas on these topics weren’t based on well thought out reasoning. I hadn’t allowed myself the time to meditate on these ideas thoroughly. Rather, it felt disingenuous to write, as I started to lean more towards initial instinct.
Initial instinct is useful to apply in lots of scenarios. For example, I don’t think people waiting in the queue behind you at Starbucks would appreciate it if you began to closely examine the difference in nutritional value between a Caramel Iced Latte and a Green Tea before making your decision. You would also need to apply it in highly critical situations. If someone were to collapse and stop breathing, you would use your initial instinct to do what you thought was right in that particular moment; in this case, you’d likely start to offer CPR.
Initial instinct doesn’t always offer the best results, but in the scenarios I’ve mentioned, taking time to think about a better solution would inevitably have worse consequences. After all, nobody wants to be hit over the head by someone who can’t wait for their caffeine hit.
On the other hand, there are many examples where it might be useful to take a little more time to ponder before making a decision. You could think about the choice to buy a house, or to get married. These commitments have long term consequences. The intention behind these decisions is that they improve your life, and the lives of those around you. Forsaking to take time to meditate on actions such as these could in reality, make your situation worse.
With that being said, thinking too much about something can have equally negative consequences. After all, indecision leads to nothing at all, and what worse outcome could be achieved?
The common idea of a “Balanced Diet” suggests that all food in moderation can have a positive effect on your health. This is one aspect of common thinking that I adhere to, and not because it’s something I mindlessly agree with. Rather, I’ve personally experienced the effects of an unbalanced diet; such as the persistent tiredness I felt when I removed most fats and ate primarily Carbs and Protein. I’ve seen both sides of the coin as it were, and maybe it’s not to say that we should experience every facet of life to hold an opinion on something, but I would think it’s appropriate to take an adequate amount of time to reason on important ideas.
In this manner, if something is deemed to be common knowledge, who has determined it so? Using our initial instinct in various aspects of life seems to stand as a strong basis for making every day decisions; but where it matters, it might just be useful to consider that your initial way of thinking could use some more thought.
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