selflesscentrism
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Can you notice how you-or someone else close by- is displaying high conviction about something? In other words, think of someone who is unswayable in their conviction and absolutely convinced about a position or perspective they’ve adopted. When you think of “adopted” think of adopting a child, for instance. That child is forever yours. To get some context let’s consider financial decisions based on changing economic factors. Or perhaps you can think of a social ideal or political theme.
When we take a position on a matter, we are so convinced of it that we plant our flag into the soil of that position- we own it. We have decided that we are “right” and convinced that we have chosen correctly. What happens next is important: What are we going to do now that we are convinced? You may notice, if you pay close enough attention to yourself and others, that “high conviction” may not correlate directly with high decisiveness to act on those convictions. Proposed another way, you might be certain of the near term direction of the economy, but waiting for more confirmation to decide whether to buy or sell real estate, make investment decisions or convert currencies. Here is the question: What could be the cause that leads our high conviction to the effect of low decidability? Could it be the burden of having to process an infinite sea of existing and forthcoming information? We may be convinced, but not ready to act. If this resonates with you, please continue reading with an open mind. The information firehose of contemporary society is exacerbated by technology- there is so much information readily available- and new info “coming soon”- that it actually might be setting us back and counterproductive to our own best interests as a society, community, family and as individuals. It’s springtime 2020 and the topic is Covid 19 (CoronaVirus) that has essentially brought the global economy to a standstill. It’s a fluid matter and new information is surfacing by the minute. We don’t know how deep or how long this will affect society. So we wait. We may be convinced there’s a “new normal” and that the world we knew in January 2020 has changed forever. We may be sure of this- but we are waiting to see more before making decisions. We’re convinced but can't decide. Why is this? Could it be the spectator sport (our hobby) of news and current events? As we tap and click to stay informed and on top of the latest details, this should empower us and embolden our self confidence to decide. But could it have the opposite effect and actually impair our decisiveness? Email Inbox Analogy Many of us have our primary email account that we have used for logins and subscriptions to various apps and online accounts. These inboxes have become so cluttered with unsolicited spam and alerts that we can hardly keep up with cleaning them up, let alone digesting the contents of each new email. Doesn’t that seem and feel like the nature of news, commentary and keeping up with current events? There’s too much of it to see and process all of it. So, we have to pick and choose as we sift through an enormous pile of information. We scan the sender and subject columns for relevance and click on the ones we want to see first, perhaps not the ones we need to see first. Then we will check again later for new messages. How do we spot this in ourselves and others? The first step, if you’re interested enough, is to look in the mirror. The idea is to look at our own habits in the mirror, figuratively speaking. But we really might consider doing this for real as a primer. Are you really sure about something? What do your actions have to say about that? |
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March 2024
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