Pay Attention To Surprises

It’s a normal human tendency to think that what we think is true, and because we think something is true, we tend to ignore information that might tell us it’s not true.

When we do that, we encounter surprises- where the results are not in line with what we expected, when facts go against our beliefs, and when someone does something unexpected.

When we catch ourselves saying, “I did not expect that, “That shouldn’t happen,” or “This doesn’t make sense,” it means we have been caught off-guard, and something we did not anticipate has happened.

It’s a cue to pay attention whenever something unexpected or surprising happens because something about how we process our reality is perhaps flawed. Surprises are a sign that we are missing something.

When that happens, we should not brush it as being inconsequential. We should avoid the idyllic comfort of self-deception and ignorance.

The right thing to do would be to dive in and figure out what was missing in our understanding.