Rationalizations

Once, I told someone he was a master of rationalizations.
It wasn't a compliment. Despite the strange spelling of the word, rationalizations isn't what it sounds like, on the contrary, it's a failure of rationality and reasoning. Rationalization is the process of constructing a logical justification for a belief, decision, action or lack thereof that was originally arrived at through a different mental process. In other words, it's a process of self-delusion to make one more comfortable of oneself, or to avoid dealing with certain issues. There is a common tale that most of us have heard before that implies the seemingly foolishness of rationalizations, that is of course, the tale of the fox who couldn't get the grapes. Due to the failure of the fox to obtain the grapes, he rationalized that the grapes were sour and moved on.

This of course, exemplifies the foolishness of rationalizing, and after reading that story I'm sure most of us felt a sense of superiority (as we often do when we hear of someone doing something foolish) and that we'd never do as the fox did. Ironic thing is, humans are masters of rationalizations and self-delusion. The power of rationalizations shouldn't be underestimated. Once, a cult figure manipulated the rationalizing ability of close to a thousand people, making them commit mass suicide. Through a period of time he steadily abuse the rationalizing nature of his followers, the fact that they were only normal people does nothing but make the incident more disturbing. For the curious, just wiki Jonestown.

If you think we're safe from such mental manipulation then you'd be wrong. People's ability to ignore, not notice, or deem unimportant evidence contradicting their acquired beliefs can be astounding. One example that plagues many of us is direct sale companies. We've all had at least a friend that participated in such activities. Receive a call from an old friend that you were never close with? A decent chance he's trying to "give you an opportunity" to achieve financial freedom.

Religious people of course, are masters of rationalizations. Religious doctrine not making logical sense and having no evidence to support whatsoever? No problem. Our god works in mysterious ways. Other typical responses that really makes no sense if you aren't rationalizing? God did it to preseve free-will, god is testing your faith, god must exist because I learn good things from religion, prayers work because sometimes what you pray for comes true (although the other times God just doesn't want to give you what you want).

Truth.

Other common rationalizations in day to day life include a smoker that rationalize that smoking is just another harmless activity, a fat/out of shape person telling himself he/she hasn't the time to exercise, a person too cowardly to try something new rationalizing that that new thing probably isn't worth the effort (classic sour grapes), a girl after being used and dump rationalizing that the guy must have some noble motive . I don't need to list down many more. If you open your eyes and observe the people around you, you'd be sure to notice countless rationalizations, ranging from somewhat convincing to downright pathetic.

So, as you can see, the human mind is particularly good at rationalizing. Next time you make a judgment, a decision, or a thought, ask yourself, do you really know what the grapes taste like? Rationalizations may be tempting at times, but they also prevent us from seeing the truth about ourselves, about other people, and about the world. They might make you feel better, but whatever good you're feeling from rationalizations is equivalent to the satisfaction of the fox thinking the grapes are sour. Face reality, accept it as it is, and do what you need to get what you want. The grapes might turn out to be sour, or they might not, but one day you might get your chance to try them.