Unreasonable?

"Some people are so irrational!" "Why are they so unreasonable?" "He is too emotional to think straight now." "Chill out!" "Keep calm. Take a deep breath." "This too shall pass." 

We all try use our heads to make good decisions and stop ourselves from jumping to conclusions. It's a sign of maturity when we are no longer driven by our baser instincts like fear, anger and hate. At least most of the time!

Yet, despite our best efforts, we sometimes fall back to being unreasonable just like many others around us. But, what does this mean? When are we unreasonable? Is there a fail-proof test to rely on? Or is it like those other things that is hard to define, yet easy to spot when we see it? But, that's a bit too late after the fact. We want to stop short of acting unreasonably, whenever we can. Right? 

Reason is one of the two pillars of an examined life, along with observation. Plato famously focused on the powers of reason in the academy he established about 2400 years ago in Athens. His student Aristotle probably felt that there was not a lot more reasoning to do after Plato's good work and preferred to focus his energies more on observation in the Lyceum he established. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of reasoning in Aristotle studies and writings, too, but, given that Plato did very little observation if any, Aristotle's work was a fresh air and added a lot more to our understanding of the physical, biological, esthetic, social and ethical life we find ourselves in. 

Fast forward about 1500 years and we get to the rebirth of enlightenment in the western world thanks to the likes of the Montaigne, Descartes, Hobbes and Hume. Some of them picked up and followed up on Plato's approach and gave us rationalism, and some others walked the Aristotelian path and gave us empiricism. 

These days, it is safe to say that we would all agree that combining reason and observation would give us the best information about our world and ourselves. Yet, we all act unreasonably from time to time. We make mistakes and might act in irrational or unreasonable ways, let alone the very many illegal or immoral ways.

Morality is the focus of ethics and we talked about it in other pages like Good or bad? Can you you know for sure!?, Bad is like darkness and Bad intentions! Right action is a challenge as long as we live. You and I are in charge: It is all on you and me and our fellow human beings. Good luck to us all on that! But, the good news is that once we take care of that, we rarely need to deal with the legal system. Staying true and taking care to do right by everyone we interact with would be, in general, sufficient for us to stay within the laws and rules of the society we live in. Therefore, let's move on and try to get a grip on what makes some beliefs and actions irrational or unreasonable, even if not illegal or immoral. 

Here is a solid test to inquire into our thoughts and conclusions to make sure they don't fail us and push us into unreasonable beliefs or behaviors:

1) Is the thought or conclusion true? Do I know that for sure?

In some cases, and if we are truly honest with ourselves, we get a very helpful shortcut here: we realize that the conclusion is not true! And, even if we want to believe it (who doesn't indulge in wishful thinking or its opposite "dreadful thinking?"), something in us tells us that we really don't know for sure. We stay with an open mind! That's wonderful when it happens. Such a stance puts us in very good company: the company of Socrates! If you'd like to check out more on that, please see: What's Socrates up to? 

Yet, we are not always so lucky. We might be holding on to that belief for dear life. In that case, here is the second check on our reasonableness: 

2) There must be some premises or assumptions that I believe in which lead me to this conclusion. What could they be? Sometimes, emotions get in the way. We talked about that in another page. You can read up on that here: Eat a feeling sandwich!? 

There is no easy way out of (2) above. If you value being reasonable, and you hold your friends and family and co-workers and in general your neighbors to that tough standard, the onus and responsibility are on you to dig in your mind and heart and as such identify your reasons, premises and assumptions that pushed you to that conclusion. Let's give you some time to do that on any persistent thought that's been bothering you lately. Once done, please go on.

3) For each reason or premise or assumption, repeat the process in (1).

It is key to make sure that each premise is true for us. It might seem to be arduous and too much effort to go through this inquiry as such, but, imagine that the alternative is hurting or harming ourselves or those around us because we believe and act on a wrong assumption! A wise teacher simply said: don't judge lest you'd be judged. Yes, our shaky assumptions, premises, reasons or beliefs lead to wrong judgements, pain and suffering. Buddha has a lot to say about that but we talked about all that in that other page titled Eat a feeling sandwich!? 

There are two things that can help make these three steps, 1, 2 and 3, a lot easier. The good news is that at least one of them is always available to us all:

A) Write down your conclusion and the premises that led you to it.

Why do we need to write it down? Well, we don't. But, the mind is very quick in avoidance, suppression and self-deception. Unless we put things on paper, we might be overwhelmed with a deluge of thoughts, doubts and confusion. Go ahead and write it down. It's much easier than you think! Then, you can test each using steps 1, 2, and 3. 

B) Talk to a good friend and ask for their honest input. 

We have a saying in Turkish: what a true friend says might hurt at first. In English, we say no pain no gain. The pain we suffer from truth, if any, is like healing balm that hurts at first. But, remember that it's your friend and they want what is best for you. Otherwise, they are no friend, are they?

If you don't feel like doing either A or B, that's a good sign that something in you is pushing you toward being unreasonable. What could it be? If you feel confused and at a lost, here is a hint: maybe you don't feel safe, or somehow feel threatened right now. In that case, try to:

C) Reach out to someone you trust and tell them that you don't feel safe and you want them to give you some comfort and support. 

If you can't think of anybody whom you trust now, you are not alone. That's one reason many amongst us talk to Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius or Krishna or refer to an ancient scripture directly or indirectly through a priest, monk, imam, guru, so on and so forth. Many others turn to living teachers or spiritual leaders and the many books on self-help, new age and spirituality. Let us wish them all good luck in finding a trustworthy and competent teacher or a helpful teaching that's right for them. The teacher or the teaching is meant to help us get in touch with the truth within. Only as such, we are set free from irrationality, unreason, unease and insanity. We can all feel safer and heal. That's a very good assumption to start with.