All humans are hypocrites; the biggest hypocrite of all is the one who claims to detest hypocrisy.
– Peter Wastholm
Scene: You are in the office and you see 2 colleagues and your manager talking and laughing at something.
“What would they be talking about? Is it about me? Are they talking about the fumble I had in the presentation? OMG yes they are talking about it. Let me get closer to them so I can listen.” (Heart rates rising). “Oh mannnn! I still can’t hear anything.” (The 3 people keep laughing and the go off to their desks and continue their work). “F**k man, it better be something unrelated. But what if it isn’t? December is approaching. What if my manager gives a bad feedback about me. What if I don’t get promoted this year? Does he have a grudge on me? Oh God I am screwed.” One of the 3 people who were discussing earlier comes to you and asks, “Hey you saw that client’s face when you were presenting? That was so funny, we were discussing about that, I was trying so hard not to laugh!”. You heave a sigh, “Oh yeah, that was so funny!”.
The above scene describes a situation from a first person perspective. Now let’s see this other way round:
A really close friend of yours walks up to you, and tells you, “Hey bro! I think I am screwed, my manager has a grudge on me, I think I will be fired. What will I do?”. You ask him what happened and he says, “They were discussing something and laughing very hard. And just before that I had fumbled in my presentation. I have made way to many mistakes this year and so I don’t think my manager sees me fit for this job”. You start laughing really hard, “You dumbass! Just because they are discussing something and laughing, you assume all of this? Nothing’s going to happen, just shut the thoughts and focus on work, December’s coming”.
What can we understand from the above 2 scenarios? Both the scenarios were essentially the same. While reading this blog, you might feel that isn’t this a bit of a stretch? Who overthinks that much? But believe me, we all do. Not necessarily in this same exact scenario, but in some scenario or the other, we all overthink. There is a constant swirl of emotions and thoughts that go on in our mind each and every second. We deal with all the nonsense and chatter in our brain every single second.
An even more important question is, when the situation is same, why is our behaviour different in both the scenarios? If we are telling our friend to stay relaxed and there’s nothing to worry, why aren’t we able to think in the same way when the same situation comes upon us? Aren’t we all a bunch of hypocrites?
Hypocrites are people who don’t practice what they preach. If we preach that this isn’t an issue, why don’t we practice it when the same problem comes upon us? Are we doing it on purpose? No we are not. It is basic human nature to imagine the worst possible scenarios and stay fixated on them, doesn’t matter if the scenarios are real or imaginary. We are just too conservative when it comes to some problem that is related to ourselves.
So what do we do about this hypocrisy? Do we try to thwart it? Is this hypocrisy wrong? How do we deal with it? Let’s consider this, what is the basic issue here? The only difference between scenario 1 and scenario 2 is the perspective. We can conclude one thing from this, humans tend to be rational when it comes to problems of other people (at least the people they care about) and irrational when it comes to problems about oneself. Let’s consider one more example here, I have used this example in this blog, but it is equally applicable here. When I appeared for my JEE Mains examination, I was convinced that my exam went bad because I did not get a clock. It had nothing to do with my preparation, I was furious. But my parents told me that it was my lack of preparation that led to this, they were thinking rationally. I was thinking irrationally. I would have said the same if I were in their place.
If you try to think, there are thousands of examples of you as well as people around you behaving in an irrational way when a situation is about them and in a rational way when the situation is about someone else. It can be a really small situation like let’s say buying an iPhone and it can go as big as you can imagine. And the most intriguing part is, we even come up with reasons for each and every irrational thought that comes up in our mind. Those reasons are equally irrational, but they can convince us. For example, while buying an iPhone in India when a person can’t afford it, they make up a lot of excuses like, “It is a status symbol”, “The EMI is so low I can easily afford it”.
Humans are emotional and it is very important to manage these emotions well to live a good life. Be it financially, physically or mentally. So how do we manage these emotions? The answer is self introspection. So that’s what we will try to figure out in this blog series. I am no expert at it, and I am as vulnerable as you are to these irrational thoughts, but nothing wrong to together try to improve right?
Stay tuned for the next blog where we explore the mysteries that lie in the universe within us, our mind. Until next time, remember, it is natural to be a hypocrite!