Don't Think About Reasons Too Much

Photo: Frontier Academy Art

From time to time, people ask me "Why?" or "How come?" And then, I answer "I don't know." Many people dislike my saying "I don't know." What I mean is that people want to know a reason for something. Of course, I know having a reason for something is important when making a decision and doing something. However, in this story, I want to emphasize "a reason is made after we do or behave something." This is shown by some studies in the field of Neuroscience (Actually, I knew the fact by reading a book by Takeshi Yohrou.). In addition, today I found an article to reinforce my opinion.

It is "Typing Errur? Your Fingers Know Even When Your Brain Doesn't." It says our fingers do something, and then our brain recognize it. I suspect that a mechanism of our speaking can be explained by the same analogy. This is because we sometimes are speaking something without thinking. Our mouth knows, maybe. This unconscious process is what I want to say. In short, our brain doesn't know, but we have behaviors by the other organs: hands, foots, mouth, ears, and nose.

Finally, maybe some people would wonder "Hey, what are you doing when you really need a reason?" For this, I have a tip to make reasons for something immediately. Before explaining about it, I want to introduce kinda another thing but related. Kenichi Omae, a famous business person in Japan, said in his book (although I forgot which books it was written.) "In a presentation, if you mention the three cogent reasons for your opinion, then you could persuade your audiences." In my opinion, this would be right. Also, An experiment written in a book by Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin, and Cialdini Robert depicts that you want to copy soon, but some people are getting in a line in front of a copy machine. Suppose in the situation you want to cut the line because of your hurrying so much. To be succeeded it, adding a reason for cutting the line when you ask someone who is the front of the line a favor for that is much more likely to be acceptable to your favor than not saying a reason, even though the reason is not reasonable (It was surprising for me!). Anyway, we would need to make something reasons to persuade somebody. In my case, I categorize reasons into two groups: dispositional (internal) and situational (external). For example, suppose I went to watch a movie, Public Enemies, in a theater yesterday. Next day, one friend asked me "I heard yesterday you went to watch a movie. I was surprised! I thought you didn't like going a theater. Why did you go?" I answered " Because I like Johnny Depp (this is a dispositional reason), and also yesterday was special day for the theater. So, the ticket was very cheap (this is a situational reason)." And... maybe readers think you should pick one more reason! Please hold on... I have one more strategy. It is called as connectional reason by me lolol. It is a little bit difficult, compared with dispositional and situational. However, I think it is very effective to persuade people. So, let me back the conversation. I would say "My friend invited to me. He said if we go to the theater, we watch the movie starred by Johonny Depp at low price. So, I decided to go!" A hinge of connectional reason is to use aforementioned information, and to combine with these information.

This might seem so systematic. However, really useful. Try it!

But, to be honest, I don't want to make reasons. So, when I am asked reasons, saying "I don't know" is my honest feeling. Ironically, saying something reasons is a kind of compromise for me. If I thought about reasons too much, I could NOT do anything and never move as if becoming 'The Thinker' by Auguste Rodin.