Posts Tagged: online advice

“You Don’t Know Yourself as Well as You Think You Do”

On August 11, 2022 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I was listening to a recent “Hidden Brain” podcast the other day. Shankar Vedantam was interviewing Tim Wilson in a show called “You 2.0: How to See Yourself Clearly.” The authors made an excellent point: Introspection is not always the best way to understand yourself. In fact, many studies have suggested that your friends—and sometimes even people you don’t know at all—can help you to make better decisions than you can make for yourself.

In one intriguing study, some people were given a profile of someone they were thinking about dating. Another group was given one anonymous evaluation of the person they were thinking about dating from someone who had had one date with that person. The people who had read the profile ended up being much more dissatisfied with the prospect than those who were given the evaluation from a stranger.

This all confirms something that I have experienced repeatedly. Let me illustrate. My wife and I will go to a restaurant. Usually, I order the same thing, but once in a while I will get really adventuresome and order something else. My wife will say (with raised eyebrows), “Do you really think you’re going to like that?” Now, whenever my wife raises her eyebrows, I need to sit up straight and pay attention. Sometimes, I do. However, sometimes I am in a rebellious mood and ignore her eyebrows . . . and end up not enjoying my entre.

The Bible, especially the Book of Proverbs, informs us that taking the advice of others is one form of wisdom. Here are some representative verses:

“Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” (Proverbs 19:20, English Standard Version)

“Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.” (11:14)

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” (12:15)

Of course, we need to be careful about the source of advice. In particular, online advice can be worthless at best and a scam at worst. But we need to face the fact that we can give ourselves some very bad advice, too. As Andy Stanley says, we are all great salesmen. We sell ourselves on bad ideas. The most serious scams we fall for are the ones we perpetrate on ourselves.

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