Should you have THIS tattooed on your forehead?

Morning!

Truly…there is nothing more beautiful than a coffee maker that actually works.  As you might remember, my coffee maker died an agonizing death as it was defending itself from the ruthless onslaught of agonizing Murphy’s Lawness (ie, I goofed and spilled water on it where I should not have). 

But that’s not what you should have tattooed!

Instead, I received the following in Crow’s Quote of the Day.  It’s really really good! but because you can’t get it from the blog (only newsletter subscribers receive it), I wanted to share some of it with you here….’tis definitely worthy of two thumbs up!

And I quote:

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.

Another quote from Sir Winston – making him the most quoted individual in the DailyDose so far.

It’s hard to exaggerate the number of people who need to have this quote tatooed on their foreheads. Unfortunately for all of us upright bipeds, our brains are predisposed to lock into a set of behaviors and, once so locked, to strenuously resist movement toward a different approach.

The fancy phrase for why this happens is cognitive dissonance. What this specifically refers to is the very real psychological finding that people experience stress when holding two opposed ideas in their heads. Our brains work to reduce this stress by ignoring or rationalzing one of the opposing ideas….

…letting us putter on happily with but ONE point of view.

Why can this be such a problem? Well, let’s assume you’ve formed an opinion. The more time you live with that opinion, the more your brain sets it in stone as "the way it is." One fine day you’re confronted with evidence that is directly contradictory. Logically, you might assume that your response will be to assess this new data and, if appropriate, modify your original belief. But your brain doesn’t see it that way. It figures that the better approach is to assume that the new data is an aberration or is flat out wrong.

Examples? Well, how about Galileo and the Inquisition? Widely held thought at the time said the earth was the center of the universe and that the heavens were perfect and unchanging. Galileo looked through his telescope and said

"Hey guys – check it out. The moon’s all bumpy and imperfect. Weird. It looks like our take on the universe might need some updating."

Was the response of his contemporaries to say "Whoa, dude, you’re right. That’s definitely weird. Guess we were wrong." I’m sure you know that wasn’t the case. More like:

"Listen Jack, them’s crazy ideas and that telescope thingee of yours is gonna get you in trouble. Time to relax, have a latte, and shut the hell up."

Note that coffee was introduced to Europe in 1615 so don’t go telling me I’m throwing anachronisms around .

More recent events? The Jonestown massacre. The followers of Jim Jones had built up a huge level of personal buy-in to his cult, so much so that even when things started to look really bad they were able to ignore what you’d have thought would have been enough to have had them pulling up stakes and getting out while the getting was good.

Of course, one of the most obvious examples is the whole system of political parties. Hard-line members of any party view the world through the lens of their political predispositions. When the economy doesn’t do well, it’s because "the other guys" messed it up. It’s more difficult to stop and rationally analyze whether that’s really the case or not.

So, bottom line – it’s well and good to form your own opinions but you should also do yourself a favor and pay some attention when you bump up against contrary information.

This is one reason why the Daily Dose is one of my favorite newsletter subscriptions…..he always gets you thinking.  I highly recommend it!  Sign up for yourself and you’ll see what I mean.

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

ps – speaking about latte (don’t we always speak about coffee?)

Thank You Card, Handmade, Latte Coffee Cup (TY-7)

1990 Footed Glass Elvis Presley Graceland Latte Coffee Mug Cup

Whimsy Latte Coffee MUG with sip cover in GIFTBOX

Holiday Elegance Christmas winter Latte Coffee MUG with sip cover in GIFTBOX

Tigger tall latte coffee mug by applause

Birds Bees Sango 3042 Sue Zipkin Latte Coffee Mug Cup

Coffee by the Cup Latte Coffee MUG with sip cover in GIFTBOX

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-- Barbara Ling