Why think when I have preconceived ideas?

Thinking is hard, thinking requires commitment and decision-making, decisions that can turn out good or bad, it might even come to be seen as bad decisions. Judging people or situation on preconceived ideas is easy, it’s a think once apply everywhere schema. Nothing is more easy to stamp a stereotype on the forehead of the people you meet. That guy is corporate slave, that guy is a nerd, the gal, over there, is a poser and so on.

Preconceived ideas, stereotypes and the unwillingness to think for ourselves are one of the worst offenses that we can bring to the interactions we have. Be it cataloging people we’ve just met to putting people we already know in the same box over and over again and refusing to acknowledge that they have changed. It’s offensive, it’s unjust, it’s rude, it’s destructive to those who do it on regular basis and it’s one step away from racism, discrimination and intolerance.

I believe that the use of stereotypes comes mainly from a mechanism our brain has devised to make it easier for us to handle new situations. Applying patterns. Look at a child faced with a new situation. She will be completely absorbed by it, will put all her mental capacities in figuring out what to do in that new situation and if all fails she will fall back to the known and safe “I don’t know”, “I can do it” and “Please help me with this”. The lack of patterns requires the effort to deal with the unfamiliar. As the child grows, more and more situation will be obvious. Patterns like “Don’t take toys from other children because you won’t be able to keep it and you will be punished” fill their young minds.

As adults we drown in a sea of patterns. And I believe that the ever-increasing demand for our attention creates a fatigue that pushes too many of us to fall back to the familiar and, what we perceive as safe, preconceived ideas. And yet, this is the worst thing that we can do to our selves. We are forcing ourselves in an artificially familiar and boring world that will come crushing down when any of our patterns will be proven wrong. And this will happen sooner or later.

The solution is to make the effort and approach each situation with an open mind and a hungry mind, just like a child, discovering the world, don’t judge people by appearances, let actions speak and be tolerant and open as people change. To paraphrase Steve Jobs, stay foolish, stay hungry, and don’t assume you know a thing about the person you sit next to. Life will be more interesting this way.

I leave with with the speech in which Steve Jobs mentioned the phrase above, a little unrelated but still an interesting talk.