More times than I want to admit I’ve asked a hard question of someone who answered with “I don’t want to think about that any more….my brain hurts.” I wanna smack them!
First of all, there are no pain receptors in the brain so it’s impossible that their brain hurts simply trying to think of an answer to a question.
Second, they’re lying to themselves. One of two things is really happening. Either they know the answer to the question and they don’t want to admit it to themselves or to anyone else or they’re simply too lazy to use the brain that they have to THINK critically enough to give a reasonable answer. Both situations are seriously detrimental to creating an effective life. Choosing to not think because your brain “hurts” ensures that you’ll never “win.”
Unfortunately, our culture has accepts abdication of our responsibility to think. We are worse off for it. Students memorize answers for tests rather than learning to think through problems and come to conclusions. We are bombarded with media opinions posing as news, trying to persuade to simply repeat to gain proponents for our side. We read something sent via e-mail, believe it and pass it on without doing a reasonability or truth check on it. We routinely repeat lies, half truths and exaggerations without consequence simply because we heard it somewhere. We even look at and believe pictures and documents that have been electronically created that don’t represent truth at all.
To keep from being duped, we must think. To learn to “win” in life, you cannot follow the crowd and simply accept everything others tell you or want you to believe. Use the amazing brain God gave each human being to ask pointed questions about the truth, reasonability, motive, and righteousness of the information.
Take your power back! Next time you get an e-mail that seems incredible check to see if it’s true before you pass it on. When you discover that it’s not, you’ll feel smart, powerful and in control of your own thinking. Isn’t it far better that you are in control of you?
Good thought, but I swear my brain sometimes DOES hurt, not in the same fashion as my feet or my back. It is a much more emotional type of pain. I think that the real “pain” of thinking is simply the resistance to do the thing that we need to do! This kind of pain is evidenced in many parts of our lives, such as procrastination; overcoming a resistance, a friction.
I suppose in that context you’re right. It’s not the process of thinking that hurts, it’s the result of what you’re thinking that can cause the “pain”. Gotta do it though if you want to “cure” the pain.