The Four Ways to be Right (iii)
Being right is a feeling
In theory you are ’right’ if your idea is an accurate reflection of reality. In practice being ‘right’ is something quite different.
If you think that water put into a pan over a flame will boil and it does boil then your thinking has been right. If you think your girl-friend will come back to you after a quarrel and she does come back then your thinking has been right. If you think that the stock-market will rise and it does rise then your thinking has been right. If your think that the noise at night is not a burglar but a mouse in the store cupboard then your thinking is right – if it is indeed a mouse. In practice thinking involves coming to some definite conclusion before it can actually be checked out. You want your thinking about the stock-market to be right before it actually rises otherwise you make no money. You want your thinking about the mouse to be right before you have to get out of bed to go and have a look. You want to be right about your girl-friend in time to do something before she runs off with someone else.
In practice being right in thinking has nothing to do with reality. Being right means believing that you are right at the time of thinking. This is completely different from checking your thinking against the actual reality when this becomes possible. Being right is the feeling of being right because this is what one acts upon. If you feel you are right and you really are right your feeling is no different than if you feel you are right but are actually quite wrong. You do not act upon the rightness of thinking in so far as the thinking fits reality. You act upon the feeling of rightness whether this corresponds to reality or not.
The previous chapter was concerned with basic mistakes in thinking. If one could avoid all mistakes in thinking should this be the best way of being right? In theory it might be. But not in practice. In practice one can feel absolutely right even when one is making the most awful mistake. No one ever makes a mistake deliberately. You make a mistake because you feel you are right. It is only after wards that you find it to be a mistake – or someone else points out the mistake but you do not listen. Avoiding all mistakes in thinking does not make one feel any more right than if one had made mistakes. In practice the feeling of being right is a very real thing. It is much more concrete than the simple avoidance of mistakes or the matching of your ideas with reality.
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Passage taken from: "Practical Thinking," by Edward de Bono ISBN 0140137831 Copyright © European Services Ltd., 1971
In theory you are ’right’ if your idea is an accurate reflection of reality. In practice being ‘right’ is something quite different.
If you think that water put into a pan over a flame will boil and it does boil then your thinking has been right. If you think your girl-friend will come back to you after a quarrel and she does come back then your thinking has been right. If you think that the stock-market will rise and it does rise then your thinking has been right. If your think that the noise at night is not a burglar but a mouse in the store cupboard then your thinking is right – if it is indeed a mouse. In practice thinking involves coming to some definite conclusion before it can actually be checked out. You want your thinking about the stock-market to be right before it actually rises otherwise you make no money. You want your thinking about the mouse to be right before you have to get out of bed to go and have a look. You want to be right about your girl-friend in time to do something before she runs off with someone else.
In practice being right in thinking has nothing to do with reality. Being right means believing that you are right at the time of thinking. This is completely different from checking your thinking against the actual reality when this becomes possible. Being right is the feeling of being right because this is what one acts upon. If you feel you are right and you really are right your feeling is no different than if you feel you are right but are actually quite wrong. You do not act upon the rightness of thinking in so far as the thinking fits reality. You act upon the feeling of rightness whether this corresponds to reality or not.
The previous chapter was concerned with basic mistakes in thinking. If one could avoid all mistakes in thinking should this be the best way of being right? In theory it might be. But not in practice. In practice one can feel absolutely right even when one is making the most awful mistake. No one ever makes a mistake deliberately. You make a mistake because you feel you are right. It is only after wards that you find it to be a mistake – or someone else points out the mistake but you do not listen. Avoiding all mistakes in thinking does not make one feel any more right than if one had made mistakes. In practice the feeling of being right is a very real thing. It is much more concrete than the simple avoidance of mistakes or the matching of your ideas with reality.
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Passage taken from: "Practical Thinking," by Edward de Bono ISBN 0140137831 Copyright © European Services Ltd., 1971
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