Day 664 - A skeptic's lens - https://golifelog.com/posts/a-skeptics-lens-1666737100854
Learned this the hard way recently:
"When you choose who to follow on Twitter, you are choosing your future thoughts." [– @JamesClear](https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1312386219599433729)
For me it's more about who I engage with daily on twitter. I follow to make friends, but I don't use the home feed so I often don't see the tweets of those I follow. I only see those whom I switched on notifications for, and those on my daily-weekly engagement list.
And indeed, reading their tweets daily have an influence on how I feel and think too. As much as I like to say I'm sovereign and a discerning individual, I'm a lot less than I like to think I am. We're the effect of the 5 closest friends we spend time with. That's the 5 chimps theory. And it's not far from truth.
Granted, I've been curating my engagement feed with inspiring, hard-working, humble and awesome folks. People who I can learn a lot from. Folks I love to learn from.
Yet not everything I learn from them is applicable to me. In fact, just applying it wholesale to my context can hurt more than help.
There's something missing in all this.
A filter.
I don't feel like I'm filtering enough. I'm not sufficiently discerning. I definitely should think through more, experiment more and test new ideas I get from everyone more, before allowing it to live rent-free in my head.
Now *that* feels like it's hard to do.
It feels like it requires a lot more mindful consumption, a lot more effort expended at the point of reading. But does it?
Lately out of frustration I've been feeling a bit jaded and brought a skeptical lens to everything I'm reading. Granted, it's not the most wholesome feeling to have. But that experience got me thinking – perhaps that's all it takes. Just add a skeptic's lens to the reading.
A lens where everything is guilty of being wrong ***for me*** until proven right, through direct experience or rigorous research.
The "for me" part is critical, for it allows me to accept that something can be true for someone but not for me. Prevents unreasonable skepticism and negativity from creeping in.
OK so this is it.
Let's try this skeptic's lens for a few weeks and see what happens...
"When you choose who to follow on Twitter, you are choosing your future thoughts." [– @JamesClear](https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1312386219599433729)
For me it's more about who I engage with daily on twitter. I follow to make friends, but I don't use the home feed so I often don't see the tweets of those I follow. I only see those whom I switched on notifications for, and those on my daily-weekly engagement list.
And indeed, reading their tweets daily have an influence on how I feel and think too. As much as I like to say I'm sovereign and a discerning individual, I'm a lot less than I like to think I am. We're the effect of the 5 closest friends we spend time with. That's the 5 chimps theory. And it's not far from truth.
Granted, I've been curating my engagement feed with inspiring, hard-working, humble and awesome folks. People who I can learn a lot from. Folks I love to learn from.
Yet not everything I learn from them is applicable to me. In fact, just applying it wholesale to my context can hurt more than help.
There's something missing in all this.
A filter.
I don't feel like I'm filtering enough. I'm not sufficiently discerning. I definitely should think through more, experiment more and test new ideas I get from everyone more, before allowing it to live rent-free in my head.
Now *that* feels like it's hard to do.
It feels like it requires a lot more mindful consumption, a lot more effort expended at the point of reading. But does it?
Lately out of frustration I've been feeling a bit jaded and brought a skeptical lens to everything I'm reading. Granted, it's not the most wholesome feeling to have. But that experience got me thinking – perhaps that's all it takes. Just add a skeptic's lens to the reading.
A lens where everything is guilty of being wrong ***for me*** until proven right, through direct experience or rigorous research.
The "for me" part is critical, for it allows me to accept that something can be true for someone but not for me. Prevents unreasonable skepticism and negativity from creeping in.
OK so this is it.
Let's try this skeptic's lens for a few weeks and see what happens...