We will believe what we want to believe and doubt what we want to doubt and most of the time there is nothing that can be done about it.
Once a person develops an opinion or idea about a subject then it becomes nearly impossible to dislodge. I’ve found this to be true more often than not in the sales arena. A client will have some preconceived notion about a product or service and my job has just become that much more difficult. A good argument for always making the best first impression.
But is there an argument to be made for being more skeptical and allowing ourselves the freedom to doubt even though it might be easier and certainly less time-consuming to blindly go with our first impression?
Why do we even go with our first impression anyways? Usually it’s to do with experience. Our mind goes through examples from our memories and compares it to the present situation and comes up with the closest or most relevant scenario and how that turned out. An opinion is born.
Early on in life this will usually turn out to be wrong as we don’t have that much experience to draw on. We add in new experiences over time and as we age that “gut instinct” gets better and better all the time but sometimes it’s still wrong.
Not just a little but totally wrong and that’s when we have to step back and realize that we needed to do some analysis on the situation before rendering judgment.
But how do we develop and engender that skeptical voice in our head without becoming paralyzed with indecision? I think it’s mainly a matter of putting more thought into everything that we do. We tend to run on “auto pilot” throughout a lot of our day. We save the analysis and introspection for the “important” things in life.
Granted there are mundane and thoughtless part of our existence. For me it’s little decisions like what to eat for lunch or what to wear and I save the analytics for what I consider the worthwhile things like thinking about projects or writing proposals or even writing this blog.
In between is the gray area where that “grain of salt” should be. Being introduced to a new person or reviewing a phone conversation or digesting a news article.
Think about what was presented to you. Was it fact or merely opinion dressed up as fact? Is it a matter of cold and unblinking data or is it a matter of belief and preference?
Not everything is at it seems. The wise man learns to question.
One last note about skepticism. It is not cynicism. Cynicism has a very variable definition depending on who you ask and how it is used but lately I find cynicism in society to be a negative force. An expression and distrust and frustration of other people and their idealized motives. I admit that I get very cynical at times about some people’s faith in government as others get cynical about things like religion.
But do we ever really sit down and think that maybe the other person is genuinely motivated and enthusiastic about their ideals and is merely trying to live up to what they believe is right? Should we be more skeptical about our own cynicism?
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