Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 195 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Rationalize or Rational Lies? Part 2

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 195 of our Trek, and yesterday we started our hike up Rationalize Mountain to determine some of the reasons why we rationalize all sorts of actions and behaviors in our lives. Today we will finish our hike to the summit as we learn to make better and more logical decisions ourselves and to assist others in making better decisions. If you miss any days of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. If all goes according to our plan, we will spend most of Saturday laying out the groundwork and business plan for our new business segment. Starting in 2016 we will be creating a community of Christian podcasters called Christian Podcasting Network. We will start small, but during 2016, our plan is to grow the network to the level where we will be considered the authority and premier platform for podcasters who are Christ followers. This will include podcasts covering all areas of life and business. Some may be Christian themed podcasts while others will cover all areas of life and business from a Biblical worldview.

The remainder of our hike today takes us to the summit, and we have a lot of ground to cover on the trail called…

Rationalize or Rational Lies – Which Is It? #2

3. Making Rational Decisions

Here’s an interesting thought. Once you stop living under the illusion of being an entirely rational human being, it actually helps you to make more rational decisions!

When you realize emotions are driving your decisions, you can use that to your advantage. You realize that your feelings are an important part of the decision-making process. So how you feel about the decisions you make this week, this month, and this next year, especially from a moral and ethical standpoint, is much more important than satisfying your ego or self-image today. When making decisions, always consider the long term consequences physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. This will give you the strength to make rational decisions instead of rationalizing the decisions that you make.

Let’s look at two examples:

First, say you love donuts. Who doesn’t love a warm Krispy Kreme glazed donut? They taste so yummy as they literally melt in your mouth. Yet, after eating several of them, you notice they actually make you feel pretty bad afterward. I don’t mean bad as in “Oh, I shouldn’t have eaten that” bad. I mean actually, physically bad. Starting about half an hour after eating the donuts, you start feeling bloated, lethargic, and slightly irritable.

Although donuts make you feel great while eating them, you also rationally realized they make you feel bad for hours afterward, not even considering the health implications. When you think logically, you can decide in advance that it simply isn’t worth eating the donuts. You will even feel better financially for not spending money. So you can use logic to control your decisions.

To look at another example, consider this idea…I don’t think any of us like paying taxes, but they are needed for a civilized society to function and do result in many benefits for us. Most of us don’t feel like the government spends the tax revenue wisely. So when you are doing your taxes, do you rationalize cheating on your tax return or consider not filing at all?  This is not only illegal, but it can bring much grief if you are ever audited. In this situation, you need to plan and make rational and wise financial decisions throughout the course of each year. There are many ways to minimize your taxes legally so that you do not pay more than you owe.

As a Christ Follower, I have to sadly admit, that those who profess to be Christians seem to be very prone to rationalize all sorts of behaviors in their own lives. We rationalize our behaviors while condemning and judging others for different but similar behaviors. Jesus addressed this issue in the good news according to Luke 6:41-43, “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying, ‘Friend let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

Awareness of when we are rationalizing our decisions based on our emotions is absolutely crucial if you want to grow personally. To make conscious changes to your life, you first need awareness. So…once you become aware of rationalizing, you can stop it and learn from your mistakes.

Let’s return to the example at the beginning of yesterday’s podcast, where a salesperson convinced you to buy a cool gadget, but once you got home, you realized it’s not really what you wanted. If you weren’t aware of rationalizing, you would quite likely fall victim to cognitive dissonance. That’s where you can’t hold two conflicting beliefs in your mind at the same time. In this case, I make rational decisions as one thought, and this gadget I bought is useless as the second.

If you hold tightly to the premise that you make fully rational decisions, you would have to rationalize buying the gadget. You would come up with a whole list of features it has to convince your conscious mind it was actually a good idea to buy it.

Once you understand that all humans are prone to rationalization, you don’t have to do that. You will realize you made an irrational decision based on your emotions. You will accept the fact that you bought a gadget that you don’t really need and should not be spending money on. Then you will make sure you don’t make the same mistake in the future. You just learned from your mistake!

4. Influence Others to Make Rational Decisions

When I talk about influencing others, I don’t mean it in a negative way.

I am focused on the positive impact that we should always have on others, in all areas of life. This is part of the legacy that we are living each day.

Just as with ourselves, others make decisions based on what they want. So when you try to have a positive impact on someone, remember:

• People don’t make decisions based on what they need.
• People don’t make decisions based on what you think they need.
• People don’t make decisions based on what you think they should want.
• People make decisions based on what they want.

Just as with yourself, to impact others, you have to help them learn that all decisions have consequences.  Lovingly help them to understand that when making decisions, they need to always consider the long term consequences. All decisions do impact us physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. Rationalization of bad or unwise decisions will limit their ability to make wise and rational choices in the future.

If you want to help someone make a positive change in his or her life, remember to meet him or her where he or she is and not in a judgmental way. Help the person to see the wisdom in making rational decisions, and frame it in a way they can understand.

Always remember, we are all on this trek of life together. We are all prone to rationalize the decisions that we make. Let us make sure that we remove the log from our own eye so we can see clearly to help others remove the speck from their eye. 

On our Trek to the summit of Rationalize Mountain, we have learned much about the decisions that we make. Let’s apply this learning each day. One rational decision you can make today is to share Wisdom-Trek with your friends and family. Encourage them to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy as we remain in camp for a week and resume digging for nuggets of wisdom in the book of Proverbs, continuing with chapter 6.

That will finish our podcast for today. Remember to listen to your daily dose of wisdom each day. Please share Wisdom-Trek with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this Trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!