Recently I have started wondering why people tend to act based on their instincts, rather than stopping and thinking what the best (i.e. most beneficial) course of action will be in a certain situation. Its as if logical thinking has been thrown out of the window in favour of instinctive reaction. Don't get me wrong, instinctive reaction is very important (I mean, if it wasn't for instinctive reaction, a person would not be able to get him/herself out of dangerous situations and the human race as a species would not have been able to survive as long as it had). It is just that, for most part, instinctive reaction isn't very well suited in allowing a person to improve the situation in which he/she finds him/herself. If humans had relied solely on instinctive reaction from the beginning, there would have been a lot of us at this stage (i.e. survival), but all of us will still be living in the trees (i.e. no progression or evolution (if you support the idea, but this is inconsequential to my argument)).
To me however, the problem in this "modern" world we live in isn't the actual act of thinking with your gut instead of with your head, but rather the consequences of doing so. This becomes very apparent when one witnesses a restaurant patron shouting at a waiter because the kitchen got the order wrong, or when a shop assistant is verbally abused by a customer because the shop's tills are all off-line due to a technical problem.
Why does it so often feel to me that I am the only person in these situations that see past the problem symptoms, and understand that in a lot of cases the cause of a problem lies somewhere removed from the poor soul standing in front of you, being just as frustrated as you are, but having to weather the storm being directed at him.
Maybe it’s just because I'm an engineer and that I have training in doing this, but my default reaction when faced with some or other adverse event is to (calmly) look past the symptoms, identify the source of the problem, and try to address/correct it. Not to get all emotional about the symptoms, and expecting the universe to correct the injustice it has supposedly done me. Maybe that is the problem. Maybe people are so self-centered that they expect the world to conform to their whims, and when it doesn't, there's hell to pay. Talk about spoilt brat syndrome. What typically works for me is thinking about my existence as follows: The universe doesn't owe me a thing. Therefore it won't change ITS course just to make MY life go smoother. Bad things will happen to me. That's just the way it works. And it won't help throwing a tantrum when things go wrong. Just deal with it. Stop, think, and get yourSELF out of the hole. And don't blame others for your misfortune when its clearly not their fault. Let's be smart about this people, come on!
