A dangerous mental Habit

Does he love me? Does she hate me? Why did he say that to me? What’s her opinion about me?

We ask ourselves hundreds of questions daily concerning the meaning of what other people said or did, or even didn’t do.

We all try to understand what the people in front of us are feeling and rationalise why they did an action in this particular manner or time. Although all of these deductions are not built on scientific reasoning we keep tending to rely on them heavily. What happens as a result is, that we treat our own interpretations of others as established facts although they are mostly wrong.

Alright, we shouldn’t just guess what people mean, but then how does analysing someone through scientific reasoning work ? If we tried to analyse a person’s behavior, we have to include all these factors in our complex equation :

1. The person’s personal beliefs and, stemming from that, their perception of life

2. Personal relationships ( e.g. have they lost someone lately or are they having a difficult time in their relationship? )

4. Their past experiences in life that shaped the way they react and the way they perceive the actions in front of them.

5. Hormone levels ( for both genders )

6. Their financial situation

7. Their health

8. Even what happened to them just today ( e.g. did their boss shout at them earlier and that’s why they’re agitated? )

And so goes on the list with endless possible combinations. If we had to list all factors that have to be taken into account they would be hundreds if not thousands, considering they could be measured in the first place.

Not to forget the most important factor: TIME. With every second passing our brain adds new memories while other factors are eliminated. We tend to forget the details and our mind projects the feelings that we have towards this person and creates memories that fit with feelings that we have. A certain action from a loved one has a stronger effect on us than the same action from a stranger. For example, a demotivating word from one of our family members can be amplified 100 times compared to hearing it from a stranger you just met. The same demotivating…