The human condition (continued)

Okay, so part two.

Rationalization. Allow me to explain.

I'm not a jerk. Really. I don't do anything for the sake of being mean. Even if something does on the surface seem to be mean-spirited, there's always another reason behind it.

Problem: while that is the truth and nothing but the truth, it's not the whole truth. It wouldn't pass mustard in a court, nor should it in real life.

What happens in some cases is that I first think of the selfish motive for the action, then look for other ways to justify it. This is not a conscious process, it usually happens in a fraction of a second while my conscious mind is preoccupied with something else.

Thus, it stands to reason that there are times when I do *not* notice the rationalization process take place, and delude myself into thinking that I'm doing something for a good reason, when that might not really be the case. And how far does this go? Am I in fact capable of performing wholly selfless actions?

This, is a nutshell, is my problem with rationalization. I know it effects me to some degree, I've witnessed it firsthand. But I have no idea how far it goes, how often I take any event and spin it so that I think it's to my benefit (maybe I should go for a career in politics).

There are some advantages. I do rationalize things for other reasons, in other ways - such as taking something which might otherwise be a negative for me and rethinking it in a sort of cognitive dissonance.

I'm having some trouble thinking of examples (at least ones I'm willing to share with the Internet), but here's a couple. I realize that I'm, by quite a margin, not the best drummer in my high school band. Rationalization: I'm not good enough to pursue music as anything more than a hobby anyhow, it's better I learned this before I started thinking otherwise. Or I apply to three universities, only one accepts me to exactly what I want into. Rationalization: I wanted to go to that one anyhow. (While Laurier Brantford *was* my first choice, I'm pretty sure it wasn't as far ahead of the pack as I now think it was.) This has happened countless other times in my life - where I've convinced myself of something that may or may not be entirely true, to the point where even I'm not entirely sure where the truth lies.

So it's not all bad (although that last sentence still makes it sound pretty good), there are times rationalization *doesn't* involve being a jerk to others. But those aren't the ones that worry me as much.

The other problem is that I'll never know for sure how widespread a problem this is - there are always going to be people who won't admit to this sort of behaviour, or more cynically, won't realize it's going on.

Hooray for overthinking just about everything.

--Ryan