Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 195 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Rationalize or Rational Lies? Part 2

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 195 of our Trek, and yesterday we started our hike up Rationalize Mountain to determine some of the reasons why we rationalize all sorts of actions and behaviors in our lives. Today we will finish our hike to the summit as we learn to make better and more logical decisions ourselves and to assist others in making better decisions. If you miss any days of our Wisdom-Trek episodes, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. If all goes according to our plan, we will spend most of Saturday laying out the groundwork and business plan for our new business segment. Starting in 2016 we will be creating a community of Christian podcasters called Christian Podcasting Network. We will start small, but during 2016, our plan is to grow the network to the level where we will be considered the authority and premier platform for podcasters who are Christ followers. This will include podcasts covering all areas of life and business. Some may be Christian themed podcasts while others will cover all areas of life and business from a Biblical worldview.

The remainder of our hike today takes us to the summit, and we have a lot of ground to cover on the trail called…

Rationalize or Rational Lies – Which Is It? #2

3. Making Rational Decisions

Here’s an interesting thought. Once you stop living under the illusion of being an entirely rational human being, it actually helps you to make more rational decisions!

When you realize emotions are driving your decisions, you can use that to your advantage. You realize that your feelings are an important part of the decision-making process. So how you feel about the decisions you make this week, this month, and this next year, especially from a moral and ethical standpoint, is much more important than satisfying your ego or self-image today. When making decisions, always consider the long term consequences physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. This will give you the strength to make rational decisions instead of rationalizing the decisions that you make.

Let’s look at two examples:

First, say you love donuts. Who doesn’t love a warm Krispy Kreme glazed donut? They taste so yummy as they literally melt in your mouth. Yet, after eating several of them, you notice they actually make you feel pretty bad afterward. I don’t mean bad as in “Oh, I shouldn’t have eaten that” bad. I mean actually, physically bad. Starting about half an hour after eating the donuts, you start feeling bloated, lethargic, and slightly irritable.

Although donuts make you feel great while eating them, you also rationally realized they make you feel bad for hours afterward, not even considering the health implications. When you think logically, you can decide in advance that it simply isn’t worth eating the donuts. You will even feel better financially for not spending money. So you can use logic to control your decisions.

To look at another example, consider this idea…I don’t think any of us like paying taxes, but they are needed for a civilized society to function and do result in many benefits for us. Most of us don’t feel like the government spends the tax revenue wisely. So when you are doing your taxes, do you rationalize cheating on your tax return or consider not filing at all?  This is not only illegal, but it can bring much grief if you are ever audited. In this situation,