THINKING FOR YOURSELF

Do you think for yourself? Do you? Really? If you do, you are a rare bird! Most people do not. How do I know that? Because if you identify a person’s economic status, education status, political affiliation, religious affiliation, and their family and cultural heritage—you can make a more than likely prediction which will be a statistically significant guess about what they think, believe, and value. So, are they really thinking for themselves or just repeating what they have been taught?

Living off of what others have told you, what you were taught in your cultural and social world is borrowed thinking. It isn’t that this is bad or wrong. In fact, it is where we all start. The first 10 years of life—the entire content of your thinking is borrowed. It is borrowed from parents, teachers, peers, etc. In fact, this is true even through nearly all of your teen years. There you switch from your parent’s influence on your thinking, believing and valuing to your peers thinking, believing, and valuing. Now as a wonderful anti-conformist, you are still a great conformist, you just switched parties.