Accidentals: Brains that Skip

Photo by Lucas Ludwig on Unsplash

Sometimes our brains skip logical steps and we don't even know it. Everybody does it. It is one of the ways our brains conserve resources. Different brains because we are different people, skip different steps,

Everybody's brains are different. One way to test this is verbalizing the sequence of ideas used to reach to a conclusion. You'll find, most times, someone else will point out one or more of your steps that were unnecessary or maybe one or more steps that are missing. 

Our brains leap. This reality is very uncomfortable and can have consequences on our wellbeing. They can even affect our choice of partner.

One interesting example is a demonstration by Tony Robbins. Two members of the audience are stood up. The woman is asked to propose a day for a date to a guy. The guy declines. When the woman is asked what she thought, she replied that maybe he doesn't like her. When the guy was asked, he said he has work that day. One person's brain jumped to the conclusion that she wasn't liked, another's brain jumped to the conclusion that an explanation wasn't necessary.

Humanity is yet to understand what makes us tick. What we know is our brains jump to conclusions all the time. How that happens can be very confusing to others and sometimes to ourselves! Shortcuts are nice when there are no consequences. The moment they start affecting our realities, our realities would've changed forever.

Being mindful by knowing that our brains do take shortcuts may very well be our only way out.