I was wrong... | INFJ Forum

I was wrong...

Satya

Satya

C'est la vie
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May 11, 2008
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I thought that critical thinking was the highest level of thought. Now I know better. Critical thinking evolves into something greater. When combined with self awareness it becomes reflective thinking.

The ability to know what you want from life and to critically evaluate your own behavior in order to develop the strategies and coping skills to obtain it, is reflective thinking. This is "mindfulness". This is the examined life that Socrates spoke of, and a level thinking that becomes a way of living. It is the virtue that lies between zealotry and impulse. In essence, it is the ability to understand one's own meta cognition and coordinate it to obtain one's maximum potential.

It seems that humility has once again found me as I have to scale yet another mountain in my quest for personal growth and development. This literally could take decades to master.
 
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Not sure I understand the distinction, could you give a fictional example?
 
Welcome to the next level, best of luck on your climb to the top.

quick question Satya, how old are you?
 
May said:
Not sure I understand the distinction, could you give a fictional example?
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I can't really think of a simpler way to explain it, but I guess I can use a metaphor. Critical thinking is the grapes, self awareness and correction is the fermentation process, and reflective thinking is the wine. You are basically taking critical thinking and using it to assess and evaluate yourself and your own behavior in order to develop new strategies and coping abilities and this creates an entirely new kind of refined thought called reflective thinking.
 
Barnabas said:
Welcome to the next level, best of luck on your climb to the top.
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I'm certain I've used reflective thinking for years, I've just never been aware of how to harness it until now. I was not blessed with parents who encouraged the ability and so I'm learning it a bit late in the game. An unfortunate byproduct of my religious upbringing was a sense of self importance and a belief that I could do no wrong as long as I stood true to my belief system. Fortunately, that was destroyed by my development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that most people don't learn until college, but even then reflective thinking is a skill that people generally learn younger than I am learning it now.

Evaluating and mastering your own behavior for the purpose of attaining your full potential is a lifelong quest once begun, but now I can finally see the map. In a few years, I may look back on my squabbling and find it to have been a waste of time and energy, but at least I finally feel I am making progress and learning to master myself.

quick question Satya, how old are you?
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Old enough to know better than to answer that question. Chronological age is irrelevant to an individual's personal development and so it can only play into people's biases and preconceptions regarding age groups.
 
Satya said:
I'm certain I've used reflective thinking for years, I've just never been aware of how to harness it until now. I was not blessed with parents who encouraged the ability and so I'm learning it a bit late in the game. An unfortunate byproduct of my religious upbringing was a sense of self importance and a belief that I could do no wrong as long as I stood true to my belief system. Fortunately, that was destroyed by my development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that most people don't learn until college, but even then reflective thinking is a skill that people generally learn younger than I am learning it now.

Evaluating and mastering your own behavior for the purpose of attaining your full potential is a lifelong quest once begun, but now I can finally see the map. In a few years, I may look back on my squabbling and find it to have been a waste of time and energy, but at least I finally feel I am making progress and learning to master myself.
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I had the same experience re: religious upbringing...I had the great great great luck to be learning about identity theory in a psychology class as I went though a major life crisis, which startled me into reflective thinking...otherwise I would've been stuck in trying to make everything religious make sense critically. (I can explain this further if anyone wants, but it would be a VERY long story.)

Although I'm guessing the idea of "strategies and coping skills" makes a lot more sense to the J types in general than it does to me...for me, it meant letting go of a lot of strategies and just Being.

It was WEIRD when I first started thinking this way - it was like my brain had been sideways all along and then suddenly righted itself.

My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, wrote a poem called Mindful - your mention of "mindfulness" made me think of it. I don't know if it connects to your idea of reflective thinking, but it certainly connects to mine.
 
jlynnr said:
I had the same experience re: religious upbringing...I had the great great great luck to be learning about identity theory in a psychology class as I went though a major life crisis, which startled me into reflective thinking...otherwise I would've been stuck in trying to make everything religious make sense critically. (I can explain this further if anyone wants, but it would be a VERY long story.)

Although I'm guessing the idea of "strategies and coping skills" makes a lot more sense to the J types in general than it does to me...for me, it meant letting go of a lot of strategies and just Being.

It was WEIRD when I first started thinking this way - it was like my brain had been sideways all along and then suddenly righted itself.

My favorite poet, Mary Oliver, wrote a poem called Mindful - your mention of "mindfulness" made me think of it. I don't know if it connects to your idea of reflective thinking, but it certainly connects to mine.
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That seems to be fairly close to my own experience in the matter. I feel like I am slipping into a sense of being where past, present, and future are all existing at the same time. When it comes to religion, I feel very happy that I shed that psychological crutch because now I feel like I'm a path to attaining my purpose in life. I can see why religion is essential for some people, and I think I'm beginning to get to a point in my life where I will need to simply recognize that some people need that crutch and I should just let them have it. It's beautiful that they want to believe something so badly and who am I to take that away from them?
 
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Satya said:
That seems to be fairly close to my own experience in the matter. I feel like I am slipping into a sense of being where past, present, and future are all existing at the same time. When it comes to religion, I feel very happy that I shed that psychological crutch because now I feel like I'm a path to attaining my purpose in life. I can see why religion is essential for some people, and I think I'm beginning to get to a point in my life where I will need to simply recognize that some people need that crutch and I should just let them have it. It's beautiful that they want to believe something so badly and who am I to take that away from them?
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Yes - beginning to focus on the Nowness of Now, realizing that the future doesn't exist and the past is only a memory - and that the moment I'm in is like a prism, kind of, that transforms the past and allows me to learn from it.
 
jlynnr said:
Yes - beginning to focus on the Nowness of Now, realizing that the future doesn't exist and the past is only a memory - and that the moment I'm in is like a prism, kind of, that transforms the past and allows me to learn from it.
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For me, I would say that who I am in the present is the sum of who I was in the past, and the sum of my choices in the present will shape my future. So the present is the only point in which I can truly live.
 
Satya said:
For me, I would say that who I am in the present is the sum of who I was in the past, and the sum of my choices in the present will shape my future. So the present is the only point in which I can truly live.
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Yep. Same thing, different words. :)

My friend James explains it like this:
Why construct an ornate imaginary and unfulfilling future (except vicariously of course, because our future self is nothing more than a fictional character to us) when instead you can - through the practice of living - create a more fulfilling means of dealing with the moment in which we will forever reside until we die? Clearly, we will not always enjoy being where we are in life, but I believe there is an ideal, dynamic way of relating to the world around us that brings us Joy.

I say the "practice of living" because every choice we make takes us closer to our "most beautiful Now" or away from it. It's like muscle memory; all the scales we played, all the times we played this particular piece help or hurt us as we sit in front of the audience, trying our best to play the piece perfectly. In a way we can't leave this moment in which we are forever stuck, but in a way we can. We embody, and transcend, everyone we have been.

So when I ask "who am I?" I'm not asking for a simple idea ("aha! I am a writer! duh!"), I'm asking for a more complex set of abstractions that takes into account who I have been before, how in my mythical past I have related to the world around me, and what that means in terms of how I am currently relating to this moment in which I exist, and how all of that relates to how I will potentially relate to the fictional realms of that mysterious abstraction we call the "future." And so really, the questions really aren't as different as they seem, and they really don't have all that much to do with the future (at least, not in the way you might have expected?).
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(I have ridiculously brilliant friends who I love a whole freaking lot. lol.)
 
Satya, yay for you, keep sharing your insights and progress along the way! It takes extreme effort to live in the now and be mindful, something I have only been able to do for brief and rare moments. I haven't made the effort in awhile but just being aware of each moment brings a subtle peace that sorta frees you from the emotional strain of stress and worry that come with life's big and small problems.
 
Satya said:
I'm certain I've used reflective thinking for years, I've just never been aware of how to harness it until now. I was not blessed with parents who encouraged the ability and so I'm learning it a bit late in the game. An unfortunate byproduct of my religious upbringing was a sense of self importance and a belief that I could do no wrong as long as I stood true to my belief system. Fortunately, that was destroyed by my development of critical thinking ability. Critical thinking is a skill that most people don't learn until college, but even then reflective thinking is a skill that people generally learn younger than I am learning it now.

Evaluating and mastering your own behavior for the purpose of attaining your full potential is a lifelong quest once begun, but now I can finally see the map. In a few years, I may look back on my squabbling and find it to have been a waste of time and energy, but at least I finally feel I am making progress and learning to master myself.

Old enough to know better than to answer that question. Chronological age is irrelevant to an individual's personal development and so it can only play into people's biases and preconceptions regarding age groups.
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haha.... I hope you already know I respect you regardless of your age, I just have a feeling that your a bit older then me but still younger then others on this forum.

well like I said best luck on your way up Maslow's ladder.
 
Welcome to the Path of Mindfulness, fellow traveler! :D
 
i had this once, and lost it in my pursuit of non-existant perfection. i am currently taking a breather to find out how to get this back without feeling as though i am trading progress for momentary peace of mind.. any suggestions?
 
Satya said:
Old enough to know better than to answer that question. Chronological age is irrelevant to an individual's personal development and so it can only play into people's biases and preconceptions regarding age groups.
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Whered that humility go?
 
bagelriffic said:
i had this once, and lost it in my pursuit of non-existant perfection. i am currently taking a breather to find out how to get this back without feeling as though i am trading progress for momentary peace of mind.. any suggestions?
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Find what really matters to you and live day to day trying to obtain it. That is all there really is to it.
 
Check out the concept of metacognition.
 
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you will be pleased to know that there are levels of thinking even beyond reflection :) You will encounter it in due time.
 
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