A recent reply sent to a friend via text:<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, I did receive your email and I read it while sitting in my car waiting for my son but then he got in the car and asked if I could stop at the grocery store for his favorite meal and then my phone actually rang and my brain is in the middle of trying to write a sermon so\u2026 I didn\u2019t respond because\u2026. SQUIRREL!<\/p>\n
In other words: I got distracted and forgot.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll go back and check your email and get right back to you with an answer. You should know though that I am currently sitting in my car waiting for a kid so if you don\u2019t hear back from me\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
This is why so many of my sermons are written while I\u2019m in the shower. There are relatively few distractions while in the steamy cocoon except for my German Shepherd who is a bit of a peeping Tom. In the shower my brain\u2019s System 2, as Daniel Kahneman calls it in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow,<\/u> has a fighting chance of paying attention to sorting through my ideas. As soon as I turn off the water and step out of the quiet of the shower System 1, which has been running quietly in the background so as to make sure my hair is washed and my body clean is now bombarded with more decisions and System 2 gets distracted.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n Being Wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n Lately I\u2019ve been noticing that I\u2019m wrong more often than I used to be. This is happening at work, in my home life, and even in conversations with friends. I think I\u2019ve heard something correctly, only to find out otherwise. I am sure I\u2019ve answered an email only to be gently reminded that in fact, I have not. I am convinced my limited capacity of attention is being used up by this doctoral program![2]<\/a> One cannot do multiple things at once that require the use of System 2 and with so much do to my System Two is on overload!<\/p>\n In her book, Being Wrong Adventures in the Margin of Error<\/u>, Kathryn Schulz writes, \u201cA whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 I wonder, if this happens because, like me, so many of us are juggling too many balls or moving too fast through life. Our \u201clazy\u201d System 2 doesn\u2019t even get a chance to wake up as in our haste we are relying on answers based on a heuristic without checking in to make sure that the use of that heuristic is accurate and makes sense. Heuristics, (rule of thumb) help us to answer questions and make decisions as quickly as possible, which in theory is helpful, but when the heuristic is unchecked, we often end up making a bad decision or giving an incorrect answer.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n In their book, How to Read Numbers And When to Trust Them<\/span> Tom Chivers and David Chivers make a somewhat similar claim using numbers or statistics as a \u201cheuristic\u201d for decision making. \u00a0While their focus is to help readers, \u201c\u2026understand how numbers are made, how they\u2019re used and how they can go wrong, because otherwise we\u2019ll make bad decisions, as individuals and as a society\u201d[5]<\/a> the point of each of the books, How to Read Numbers<\/span>, Thinking Fast and Slow<\/span> and Being Wrong<\/span>, mentioned above is to improve the our quality of thinking and decision making. If we keep reading books like these I may learn never to trust anyone or anything, especially myself! (Kidding, not kidding.)<\/p>\n .<\/p>\n Thinking Fast<\/strong><\/p>\n When initially writing my NPO I made an assumption, based on my own experience trying to find therapists for myself, family members, and church members, that there are not enough mental health resources in the city of Bend, OR. When I finally interviewed experts in the field I found out that there are actually more than enough resources they are just not easily accessed nor advertised well. Yet another example of me \u201cthinking fast\u201d in an effort to get my NPO finished as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n What I am taking away from this book is that I often make mistakes. Duh. That has been pretty obvious, especially lately. What I found beneficial is the language this book gave me to explain how my brain works, the reasons I need to create space and time for focus, and the permission to slow down!<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Kahneman, Daniel. 2011.\u00a0Thinking, Fast and Slow<\/em>. 1st edition. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Location 302 on Kindle.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> IBID, location 321.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error<\/em>. n.d. Accessed March 2, 2023. https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/book\/163560786\/Being-Wrong-Adventures-in-the-Margin-of-Error, 7.<\/p>\n