I’m rather fond of a gift a friend gave me a couple of years ago. It’s a subscription to a rather hippy-dippy magazine called The Sun
, a magazine I would never think of picking up on my own. While there are only a few parts of the magazine I actually like, I really enjoy the section called “Readers Write”, because the user-submitted content in this section is like a window into people’s minds sometimes. This was exceptionally evident in the most recent issue, in which the theme was “Warning Signs”. Easily half of the stories described scenarios in which a perfect lover or perfect opportunity “felt” funny, and the submitter ignored a lot of feelings that something was amiss, because all the more visible indicators indicated otherwise – a wonderful, doting partner who turned out to be an identity thief, an alcoholic partner who kept fooling everyone – at least on the surface – that they were “better” now – and so on.
This reminded me of a couple of experiences like this in my own life, times when I kept reasoning away my doubt about something and ended up in a horrible situation. There have probably been millions of words written on the general topic of intuition vs rational thought, from things like this Forbes piece about two scientists’ take on the topic, to this piece on Oprah.com that gets a little more feely-wheely, to the best-selling Blink
by Malcolm Gladwell. But let’s just pause here for a moment. Isn’t this where the problem begins? How can a bunch of rational thought about how intuition works do you any good? I personally don’t think it can. We’re creatures that are almost entirely driven by discomfort avoidance. And we know what we find comfortable. I think the real issue is then to learn how much discomfort you want from your life experience, and work from there.
And how do you do that? Try trusting your gut.
