An altar to my stupidity

Why I (will) keep making the same mistakes

I think I’m not stupid.

I believe I have a solid grasp on how the world works. I do my own research, I make deliberate choices, I think for myself, that sort of thing.

But apparently, this doesn’t mean that I’m immune to making stupid choices, repeatedly.

Even when there’s a pile of evidence staring me in the face.

Hoping for silver bullets

A deep sigh escaped from my lips as I opened the kitchen cabinet. It was bursting with countless white plastic jars, bags of powders, and a colorful collection of liquids in glass bottles.

What I was looking at, was my supplement graveyard. The place where all of my previously precious (but now fully forgotten) supplements go to die.

“Promotes mental clarity and focus”, “Supports a healthy immune system”, “Elevates mood and reduces stress”. All of the promising silver bullets that I had once put my faith in, desperately hoping they would instantly and magically fix my health problems.

And while they definitely didn’t, I kept buying new ones.

‘Maybe the next one will be the one’.

Fooling myself

Last week I talked about my quest for health and how perfectionism fueled my excuses not to start doing the necessary work.

When I eventually did start my road to recovery, it still took me a while to shed my former attitude. Buying supplements was just a way of looking for quick fixes and postponing the inevitable.

What looked and felt like progress was actually still a continuation of my impulse to avoid.

It did not work and it took me a while to realize that supplements were exactly that - supplementary - tools I should use on top of good lifestyle choices and actions.

What bothers me is how long it took me to get with the program. I was making stupid choices, even though I knew better. While the supplements were piling up, my common sense was nowhere to be found.

What was preventing me from seeing the situation for what it was, for such a long time?

Beliefs and blind spots

Does the following ever happen to you?

You have lost something in your house, let’s say your keys. You start checking all the regular places and when those come up empty you start checking other, weirder places. The kitchen counter, under your car seat, in between the couch cushions.

From the outside you really look like someone who is searching, walking through the house, lifting up things, going through the motions. But what you’re actually doing is confirming that they’re not there. Because ‘why wouldn’t they be’. Unsurprisingly, you end up not finding them.

When at a later time, they suddenly decide to step out of the shadow (probably smirking), they turn out to be in a place you’re sure you’ve checked, again unsurprisingly.

Because you didn’t believe they could have been there at the time of your ‘search’, you did not register them. Maybe you even saw them with your eyes, but your brain blocked it out.

Maybe this doesn’t happen to you, but it does to me, and even though I said ‘unsurprisingly’ twice just now, it still surprises me every time when it does.

I’m generally under the impression that when my eyes look at something, I will see it, but this is clearly not the case.

I only see things, when I believe they are there.

Believing in something then (or even hoping for it) can become extremely unhelpful, damaging, and costly (as in the case of my supplement ‘spree’). 

Apparently I’m quite capable of making stupid choices. While I think I’m smart, these belief-driven blindspots change what I see, how I think, and what is ‘true’. As Feynman said, we are the easiest person to fool.

I’m grateful for my supplement graveyard as an altar to my stupidity. I just hope that it’s a strong enough image to prevent me from making the same mistakes again.

But that’s probably stupid.