Of course, we do not want to and cannot always weigh every word on the gold scales. But if you think about it for the second time, we would probably refrain from these sentences. Or?
One thing is clear: we all chat a lot of nonsense between morning and evening. And who was going to accuse us of that? After all, it would be incredibly exhausting to think carefully about everything we say. And in the end we would probably be so insecure that we didn’t even dare to comment. In this respect, it is even wise to refrain from thinking too much in everyday life and occasionally to often just let what comes to mind gush out. At least as long as we recognize which statements we would no longer necessarily stand by after more mature reflection, we should think about it again – for example because someone asks or we just have a moment.
For example, if you drop the following sentences and hold on to them despite thinking, you seem to have a problem with reflecting. Or is possibly smarter than all of us combined.
6 sentences that only unreflective people can really mean seriously
“You can’t have any prejudices.”
Can you not? Oopsi, we all have a problem. Unfortunately, our brain is designed to categorize and sort new things into drawers based on known information and experiences. This method applies it coldly to everything we are confronted with – including people. Of course, it is unfair if we are afraid just because the person standing with us at the dark bus stop is a man with a beer bottle in hand and not a woman with a child. But by admitting and admitting to ourselves that we have prejudices, we can understand ourselves and our feelings much better, thereby control our behavior and treat people fairly despite these annoying boxes in our head. This in turn enables us to gain experiences that change our drawers.
“I do not judge, I am absolutely tolerant.”
Just as we cannot prevent our brain from pigeonholing things and people, we can forbid it to judge and free ourselves from finding everything either good or stupid, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. But the same applies here as with prejudices: Being aware of it is the prerequisite for questioning one’s own assessments and being more open and tolerant. And that enables our value scales to gain in complexity.
“I could have done better.”
It is so easy to say that in a certain situation you would have behaved better (speaking of evaluating …) than another person. But first, we can never know, and second, we are not the other person, so it makes zero point to compare yourself. For example, some are hypersensitive to pressure and stress and almost forget their name, while others stay cool and hardy. As a rule, we all always do our best and behave as we can at the moment. Anyone who claims to be able to play the role of another person better than this person himself has not thought through to the end.
“Horoscopes are nonsense.”
Anyone who says that something is nonsense about something that is meaningful to just one person or that interests one person is not just revealing a large portion of disrespect (and horoscopes are known to be of much more interest than one person …). Religion, myth, art – all of these are concepts that help us to process and understand reality. The philosopher Ernst Cassirer coined the term symbolic forms – to which he also counts language and science in addition to the ones mentioned. Whether we believe in horoscopes or not, they enrich us and our imagination and it is absolutely justifiable to deal with them. And quite apart from that: It’s really not so easy to dismiss from the hand that everything in the universe is somehow connected and the constellation of stars and planets affects our lives.
“That’s the truth.”
What is truth? In all seriousness, this is the question that philosophers have been pondering: they have been within for millennia and they are still not in agreement today. We all know comparatively little and only see a tiny fraction of the whole from our perspective. How should we be able to say with certainty that something is true – apart from perhaps the things that are going on inside us? We can be honest, have an opinion about what is true and what is not, but seriously believing that our view is closer to “the truth” than that of another person, or even corresponds to it one to one, would appear on closer inspection a little megalomaniac, right?
“You have the wrong attitude.”
With the right attitude we can move mountains – blablablabla. It may be true that our mindset plays a huge role in our lives. As a rule, after all, it is the element that we have the most control over. But we cannot always control our attitude one hundred percent. For example, if we are completely overtired because we only slept two hours, it is far from easy to motivate yourself to work and to be grateful that we have a task. In addition, telling a person that he has the “wrong” attitude (hello again, evaluation, by the way …) not only requires that we know what the correct attitude is, but also that we know his goals and his Know the meaning of life – in order to achieve what, is his attitude wrong? And that is either an expression of blatant overconfidence. Or of unique wisdom …
Sources used: “Essay on Man” (Ernst Cassirer), “How to make good things happen to you” (Marian Rojas Estapé)