Q: How can critical thinking help us in real life?
Krishna: Critical thinking helps you, always! Let me give you just one example.
I will tell you about an incident that happened just two days back.
I entered a competition. There was just another lady who competed with me.
It was about a story a writer wrote. The writer told us a part of the story and asked us to guess and complete the other part. The person whose version matched with that of the writer's story would win the competition.
I thought about it in detail, guessed what the writer could have written and completed it. The other lady too completed the story.
There were about 200 people watching us.
Then the organisers read our stories out loud and asked the audience to guess who was right.
All the 200 people, without any exceptions, unanimously selected the other lady's version as the correct one. The other lady was very happy and confident that she would win. Because even the organisers too thought that was the right one.
But ... the writer came to me and said my version matched her story!
I smiled and said I knew this the moment my story was read. Because the writer was looking at me admiringly and smiling!
Everybody was surprised. 204 people lost against a single person!
The organisers were surprised too and asked me what my secret was.
And my answer was : Critical Thinking! It never lets you down.
Critical thinking is like a scientists' model. It takes all the parameters into consideration, and comes up with the best guess work. It is like scientists predicting something accurately based on the available data and discovering things. You will get it right most of the time.
There were some clues in the story part the writer told us. I took all those clues into account.
Two things to ponder here:1. Had I thought like the others with my heart I too would have gone wrong. Critical thinking put me on the right track.
2. Most writers end their stories in the way readers/audience want to make them popular. Happy endings...but a realistic writer thinks differently. Those who are responsible will not go with the flow!
The other people just guessed it based on their wishful thinking. It was like an astrologer's prediction. They wanted the ending that way. Emotional people can't predict things correctly most of the time.
Positive thinking, intuitive thinking based on emotions too make your version of predictions look silly. They will be far from reality.
Although I won the competition, I was not that happy. 200 plus people and their loss based on emotional and positive thinking was weighing on my mind.
If only everybody could think critically....
How beautiful the world would be ....
I was thinking about it on my way back home, not about my win.
And how to make everybody a critical thinker!
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