We've made up our mind!

We've made up our mind!

Every day, on every issue would you choose to think, discern, decide and then make an opinion? Or would you just once and for all make up your mind, decide which side you are on, build a toolkit of your arguments and prepare to not only falsify the opponents' arguments but also to tackle any future facts that may emerge to light?

Many times, we subconsciously choose the later. Because it is convenient and because we feel a pre-made mind can help us take quick decisions and move on through life swiftly. We have a conscious mind and a sub-conscious mind or the instinct. The conscious mind is called the slow thinking mind (coined by Daniel Kahneman) and the sub-conscious mind is the fast thinking mind. It is the shortcut to thinking. This is what I call the shelf-lookup technique.

"We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness." — Daniel Kahneman

We love convenience. Convenience rules. Convenience overrides faith, fashion & friendships. We almost always know which side of the debate we will defend, even before the debate starts and even before arguments are put forward by both sides. Even before we see the facts, we know what appearances we will endorse. We choose sides, assuming they are always the same as aligning with our core values. When a new fact comes in front of us, it is uncomfortable and inconvenient to change our made-up opinion. It is hard-work. It is scary to change your mind.

The world is much more complex and random than we imagine. Things & events happen because diverse people are involved in give-n-take on diverse issues. Appearances may be false, situations may be complex, people might have changed. Each happening has multiple probable reasons and outcomes. The real world is more unpredictable than we like. We regard predictability very highly because it supports an easy functioning of our mind.

You don’t have to defend anything, not even your own mistakes. The religion, caste, country, terrain and the era you were born in, was not chosen by you. It was a matter of bad-luck or good-luck! The society likes to put the above labels on you for their convenience and easy categorisation. You don’t have to accept, conform or defend those by-chance labels. Unpredictability is good if it helps you course correct. That small switch in your mind that makes you change your mind is uncomfortable but it is exactly what makes you authentic.

This may seem out of fashion, but I want to say: ‘be judgmental for that is what means to be a human’. Judge each incident, each political hero, each media angle, each friend or family member by their actions and values. And after you are done judging, let that judgement make you more compassionate more empathetic and more inspired to take action. Always carry the courage to change your mind!