Cognitive Dissonance

          I am currently reading a fantastic book called the Art of Thinking Clearly. This is by Rolf Dobelli, I believe is an Italian thinker and ha been translated into many languages. In it, he describes how the human mind works and its biases towards many things and its outlook towards life.

          One particular topic is fascinating, which is called cognitive dissonance, whereby he cites the fable from Aesop about the fox and the grapes. The fox is hungry around lunchtime and spotting the grapes hanging overhead from a nearby farmer's yard, he makes several attempts to jump at and reach the grapes.

         First, he envisions the grapes to be sweet as they look juicy and inviting. So he musters all his strength and jumps up high and far. Snap, he bites nothing but air. Argh ! he mutters, and puts in his all 110 percent to try again, he leaps into the air and slightly higher, but again, he is only chomping dry air.

         Finally, he gives it one last and best shot at it ; He runs from afar and jumps. Up he goes and Snap, again he lands with nothing but a bruised ego and a mouth munching at dry air.

        "Bah" he says. "they're probably not sweet and small. Its not worth my effort !"

         The fact is many of us when faced with failure, delude ourselves that the prize we have sought so hard to win is in fact not even good and worth it in the first place. This is cognitive dissonance ; we distance ourselves and put down the meaningful pursuit and prize as 'not worth it'.

         Push yourself to achieve your goals, once you fail, you pick up and press on again. You can and will achieve them !!!!