NezSez

Critical Thinking is explained in depth here on Wikipedia while Dictionary.com defines it as thus:

“The mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.”

I was formally introduced to the subject in a college English course, where one of the main texts was Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.

What I recall from the book was the Sagan’s plea for us to really think and use logic to employ a healthy skepticism to ideas, products and entities out there that may or may not be all they seem.

Critical Thinking from Star Trek

It was a really good eye-opening course, even though, when I think about it, the concept was not foreign. It wasn’t as if I had never practiced critical/analytical/deep thinking. I would say one of my earliest influences was the character of Spock from Star Trek: The Original Series (in re-runs, though — I’m not that old), a show which often used the cold logic of Spock and the emotion and intuition of Captain Kirk as points of contention in deciding courses of action.

It ultimately introduced to me the idea of finding a balance between logic and emotion in decision-making.

The Crux of Critical Thinking

The way I see it, critical thinking is:

• the ability to see the big picture (Seeing the forest for the tree)
• the ability to predict consequences (envisioning the domino effect of one action)
• the use of logic to confirm or refute a statement that sounds factual
• the ability to weigh multiple points of view

Healthy Skepticism

By regularly practicing critical thinking, one will learn to be open-minded, but yet ready to ask:

• Is what I’m seeing/hearing really possible or make sense?
• Would there be an ulterior motive for x’s claim?
• Is a statement made with a certain bias that skews the true facts?
• Is my own bias and emotions coloring my own decision about xyz subject?
• Am I privy to all the information that is available to make a true judgment?

Critical Thinking is Learning

In the end, it’s about learning the “truth” about something. Hopefully, most of the time the truth that you conclude after using critical thinking is really true.

In future posts, I will touch on topics that affect people on a daily basis, as many bloggers do, but hopefully with a well-thought out, bigger-picture-view that many may not have noticed. And, by no means am I an expert — I just think I think a lot — so I will welcome comments and discussion.

Hope you’ll join in!

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About this time of year, we all know people who think up “resolutions” to follow. They often see them as GOALS to achieve, but honestly, how many people are able to follow through?

Not many, right?

It seems the same resolutions are made time and time again, things like:

• Go on a Diet
• Get your finances in order
• Get in shape

etc. But more often than not, people fail. Which is why it’s not surprising there so many diet, exercise, and get-rich-quick books, DVD’s, etc. out there — people struggle with these goals all the time.

Think Hard, Think Often

My question to you is, why wait until the start of a year to come up with goals?
If you do that, you leave out 364 other days when you can decide to do that important something.

The way I see it, while it is admirable for people to come up with personal goals to improve themselves, oftentimes they set up unrealistic timeframes for themselves to meet those goals. They expect the “uncommon results” that are featured in so many infomercials. But to achieve any of the above in a few weeks or months is usually unrealistic — the nature of these positive changes require time and constant attention.

The key to success then is a regular mindset to affect the change that you want now, not something that you wait until next week or next month, and certainly NOT waiting until the end of the year to make a notion to change or improve.

Therefore, if say, you want to get your tax return done early, then it makes more sense to set aside the time NOW to go ahead and do either a weekly or monthly completion of your records and/or books, organizing receipts, balancing your checkbook, etc., rather than waiting a whole year.

If you do not set aside the time (in this case, maybe 30-45 minutes a week), you’ll find April 15th creeping up sooner than you think, and THEN, the task of looking for receipts, reconciling books, etc., will seem like an insurmountable challenge indeed.

Constant Improvement in Baby Steps

So the lesson here, whether it’s taxes, diet, exercise, or whatever — nothing happens overnight. The key to achieving anything worthwhile that truly requires lots of time and commitment is simply as it seems: it DOES require the time and commitment.

So, decide on your goals today and pursue them.