Are you suffering Cognitive Dissonance?

Human beings like to feel in control of their environment. It’s a survival mechanism. We form theories and look for patterns so that we can navigate an uncertain world with some sense of confidence that we’re making the right decisions. If we didn’t have this instinct, we’d spend most of the day sitting on the sofa, paralysed by indecision.

The trouble is, it’s very easy to get wedded to the illusion of certainty. It takes a lot of effort to build a world view that we feel comfortable with. So we hate it when our way of looking at things is challenged. Particularly if incorporating the new information would mean having to change our minds about a view that has proved useful in the past.

The discomfort we feel when we can’t incorporate a piece of information into our existing world view is called ‘cognitive dissonance.’ It’s an unpleasant sensation – like an itch you can’t scratch. So it’s something that we all try to avoid.

We stock up on arguments to defend our views, and attack the opposing view. And sometimes, if we can’t give a well-argued answer to a point, we’ll resort to distraction tactics or personal attacks.

In short, we’d rather be proved right than proved wrong. So we seek out information and views that confirm our own take on things, and ignore information that contradicts it. 

These few paragraphs were lifted directly from an Investment Magazine's Newsletter. Investing it seems is just part of the hologram!

The process of awakening, like trading, can often be less than comfortable, and I believe that a large part of that discomfort is because of the cognitive dissonance inherent in the process. In fact you could say that awakening is a process of cognitive dissonance, as new information threatens to upset our world view.

Perhaps the toughest part of the process is to pass the decision making from the head to the heart. As the above passage begins "human beings like to feel in control of their environment" and the rational mind is hard wired to achieve this. When the mind rationalises it quite literally discards or ignores information which challenge its "illusion of certainty". 

In this incredible shift in consciousness which we are currently "enjoying" many still insist that nothing has changed. Well, in their reality that is probably the case, as their "illusion of certainty" discounts the incredible amount of new information available to us and their rationalisers work harder than ever to discard any possibe source of cognitive dissonance.

This is particularly true amongst those who seemingly have most to lose. The establishment and its beneficiaries are putting a huge amount of energy into sustaining their illusion and that will continue until the discomfort created by that effort becomes too much and they will choose to join the rest of us is the relatively mild discomfort of cognitive dissonance.

 
   

Lessons from a new generation.

Would you ask a dodo for survival strategies?  Would you go to Leahman Brothers for financial advice? Would you go to President Nixon for tips on re-election?

No doubt the ideas presented would have proved really useful right up until the moment of their extinction.

The more productive information may well have been held by those species, thinkers and leaders whose time was yet to come. The difficulty is in identifying an idea or opportunity ahead of its time and having the courage to entertain a different possibility to the prevailing 'truth'.   

One clue is to look at something which has emerged without obvious reason, is clearly different and seemingly poorly adapted to the current paradigm. Think of a fragile mammal on the fringes of the dinosaur empire.

Our clue was a generation of children who struggled to adapt to their current paradigm, failing to access the structures and demands of an education system and society which proved just too coarse for their sensitivities.

Whatever your beliefs around the causes of so many of the 'labels' we stick on our kids, one thing is certainly true; these children process information in a different way. Often right brained, sensitive to feeling and impossible to condition, these kids have the clues to our future.

Our work at acreativespace has always been based on a curiosity and understanding of these children in an attempt to make their experience more comfortable. What we learned was that these kids held the information which allows us to be more comfortable in our experience! The supposed problem proved to be the answer.

The answer to what? Well...everything I guess. These children are hard wired for authenticity and presence. They communicate through  resonance. To join their world demands the same, and whether it be in business, family or pleasure. The current paradigm seems to be more than just tired, it feels finished.

It is impossible to predict even the immediate future but I suspect these kids are equipped with the tools best suited to what emerges.

To thrive we could do a lot worse than learn the lessons from this new generation instead of trying to squeeze them into our clumsy dinosaur suits.