In any given circumstance, our behaviors and reactions are precipitated by how we feel at that moment. If we are happy, despondent, furious, afraid and so on, the behavior we display is always the result of our emotional state. But going deeper than that, we can also conclude that how we feel is a result of the ideas that circumstances have evoked. To highlight this point, we prefer to create a tale in our minds of what we are seeing when we see individuals from afar whispering among themselves and then one of them looks at us. And the inference that we draw may be correct or it may be wrong.
But the feeling that such a conclusion generates in us is what will eventually produce the actions that we will participate in. If we think that people are whispering about us, it may make us feel nervous or even spiteful. And our resulting response will be associated with the thinking and feeling that came before it.
Each choice we make and have made fosters our critical thinking abilities in us. We can evaluate each situation better and make the correct choice of action. This approach allows us to create confidence in our decision-making, which can lead to the independence of thought.
But still, due to those wrong choices, we find ourselves in a bigger dilemma. And we also have no choice but to face the repercussions of our mistakes and to bear the responsibility.
How can we avoid the incidence of this? It is not encouraged to doubt our choices, for this will unintentionally erode our capacity to trust ourselves and may leave us emotionally crippled. But what we should do is question the chain of thinking that helped us make the decision.
It could lead us to disastrous decisions to make faulty assumptions or mistaken interpretations of a situation. Therefore, we should question these assumptions and automatic thoughts before any choice we make. We should not presume, applying this to the example given, that the individuals we see whispering are talking about us. This is mere fear, and there should be no entertainment.
Therefore, we should constantly think about how we think. This metacognition, experts call it. This will allow us to see why we decide to do things and whether our decisions are safe and suitable or not.
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