The Critical Thinking Community
Courtesy of the Critical Thinking Community:
Most people have no notion of what it means to take charge of their lives. They don’t realize that the quality of their lives depends on the quality of their thinking. We all engage in numerous dysfunctional practices to avoid facing problems in our thinking. Consider the following and ask yourself how many of these dysfunctional ways of thinking you engage in:
- Surround yourself with people who think like you. Then no one will criticize you.
- Don’t question your relationships. You then can avoid dealing with problems within them.
- If critiqued by a friend or lover, look sad and dejected and say, “I thought you were my friend!” or “I thought you loved me!”
- When you do something unreasonable, always be ready with an excuse. Then you won’t have to take responsibility. If you can’t think of an excuse, look sorry and say, “I can’t help how I am!”
- Focus on the negative side of life. Then you can make yourself miserable and blame it on others.
- Blame others for your mistakes. Then you won’t have to feel responsible for your mistakes. Nor will you have to do anything about them.
- Verbally attack those who criticize you. Then you don’t have to bother listening to what they say.
- Go along with the groups you are in. Then you won’t have to figure out anything for yourself.
- Act out when you don’t get what you want. If questioned, look indignant and say, “I’m just an emotional person. At least I don’t keep my feelings bottled up!”
- Focus on getting what you want. If questioned, say, “If I don’t look out for number one, who will?”
It should be intuitively obvious that this list is almost laughable. And so it would be if these irrational ways of thinking did not lead to problems in life. But they do. And often. Only when we are faced with the absurdity of dysfunctional thinking, and can see it at work in our lives, do we have a chance to alter it.
This article was adapted from the book, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life, by Richard Paul and Linda Elder. Check out the rest of the Critical Thinking and Special Operations manuscript, and feel free to leave comments: