“We think, each of us, that we’re much more rational than we are. And we think that we make our decisions because we have good reasons to make them. Even when it’s the other way around. We believe in the reasons, because we’ve already made the decision.”
~ Daniel Kahneman
In my case, I must confess that my subconscious mind is far more powerful than my conscious mind. I suppose that it is for most people except that I am willing to accept that most of my decision making is based on my intuition, ie, the subconscious mind enabling me to take the decision, rather than a carefully thought out and deliberated thought process doing it. I am too impatient to do the latter anyway!
That allowing of my intuition to operate freely has enabled me to come to this fairly comfortable stage of life without much damage. I therefore allow it to function even now.
If what I state seems bizarre, I recommend Daniel Kahneman’s wonderful book Fast And Slow. His findings resonate with me as my experience bears out what he observes – “people place too much confidence in human judgement.”
Intuitive thinking can be explained – something ‘feels right’ when it fits a mental rule of thumb (heuristic) or the way our mind is wired (cognitive biases). And that, I submit is the subconscious mind.
Kahneman’s book is a ‘must – read’ one to understand our thinking and decision making processes and learn something about happiness in the bargain as well.
Pravin had suggested this topic for the weekly LBC blog posts. You can see what the other writers of the LBC have to say in their respective blogs. Maria, Pravin and Shackman.
