One of the most important lessons I ever learned the hard way was the importance of thinking for yourself. There are plenty of people out there who appear to know what they’re talking about and do a great job presenting their ideas. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re not, but how do you tell the difference?
Something that’s worked great for me is testing out ideas whenever possible. I’ve read a lot of books about interacting with other people, being productive, getting into the right mindset, managing stress, and other important life skills. Rather than just assume the authors are correct, I test their ideas. Sometimes it takes a while to make sure I’m doing it correctly if it’s something I’m not used to doing, but once I get the hang of it, I can see whether or not it actually works.
Another great tool for testing ideas is to separate the ideas from the person who presents them. If I find someone appealing, I’m a lot more likely to accept whatever they say, whether good or bad. On the flip side, if I dislike someone, I’m much more likely to reject whatever they say, even if they have some good points. Whenever I can get the ideas by themselves and focus just on them, forgetting about the person who presents them and my personal feelings about them, it becomes much easier to test the merit of those ideas. This way, I can recognize where the people I like get it wrong and where the people I dislike get it right while avoiding making anyone an idol.
The third strategy I’ve found helpful for maintaining critical thinking skills is to not spend too much time focusing to any one person. Reading, watching, and listening to a lot of people give their thoughts on a wide range of subjects helps me hear a lot of different perspectives on those subjects. This makes it harder to blindly follow one person or get stuck on just one perspective. It’s also useful for adding nuance to my own views and being more understanding toward people who think differently than I do; even though we disagree, I can better understand where they’re coming from I’m more familiar with the arguments they use.
Several of you have told me that you enjoy reading my blog and seeing my thoughts, which I greatly appreciate. However, I’m still sorting a lot of things out for myself and I have a long way to go before I’d consider myself to be an expert on anything. If I say something that helps you, I’m glad, but I hope all of you think about my posts and whether or not they make sense instead of accepting my viewpoints because you like my writing. I’ve found out through firsthand experience the problems of suspending my critical thinking and blindly following someone, and I’d hate for any of you to fall into that trap. So thank you for reading my blog and giving me feedback about it, but please always remember, you don’t have to take my word for it. And I hope you don’t.