Why are people so reluctant to rethink the way they think?

[ShadowFenix]

I tried sharing some of my philosophies about life with my close friends whom I've known for years (7+). I want to surround myself with like minded individuals, so of course I would try to get people to see the way I think, right? Especially when they're the friends I've known for years. I presented an idea that improved my life, so I wanted to share it in an attempt that they could improve their lives.

The point I shared was "Take control of things in life that you can control, rather than stressing on things completely out of your control."

This is completely reasonable, right?

They rejected it using reasoning like "Your way of life doesn't work for everyone" and "my choices in life don't matter." The point for the first one doesn't even address this part specifically, it's just an immediate dismissal of what I said, and the second point is just completely wrong from a self-improvement mindset.

That just makes me think that people aren't willing to even consider thinking a different way. Why is this?

 

[Billtx49]

I tried sharing some of my philosophies about life with my close friends whom I've known for years (7+). I want to surround myself with like minded individuals, so of course I would try to get people to see the way I think, right? Especially when they're the friends I've known for years. I presented an idea that improved my life, so I wanted to share it in an attempt that they could improve their lives.

The point I shared was "Take control of things in life that you can control, rather than stressing on things completely out of your control."

This is completely reasonable, right?

They rejected it using reasoning like "Your way of life doesn't work for everyone" and "my choices in life don't matter." The point for the first one doesn't even address this part specifically, it's just an immediate dismissal of what I said, and the second point is just completely wrong from a self-improvement mindset.

That just makes me think that people aren't willing to even consider thinking a different way. Why is this?

They prefer victim hood, it’s easier for them…
Active vs. passive. Know what type you are and find like minds for serious convos.

 

[ShadowFenix]

They prefer victim hood, it’s easier for them…
Active vs. passive. Know what type you are and find like minds for serious convos.

It just seems like there's so many people these days who prefer victim hood these days

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Yeah, it's fatalism. There is no meaning, and no point in striving. People are largely living in a moral vacuum today, and our culture has been pretty much hollowed out by science and technology.

In this situation, individuals need to be 'awakened' at the existential level... to reject the orthodoxy of materialism. They then realize that their humanity is something like embodied spirit. They are then open to the world of ideals and possibilities, become curious and appreciative of the aesthetic realm, of art, of ideas such as justice, and in history, philosophy, ethics, and religion.

 

[marmel75]

Because they only know one way to do it. It would be like asking why do you throw a ball the way you do...because you only know one way to do it...the way you've been doing it all your life.

 

[ImTheDoubleGreatest!]

What you said was one of those feel-good semi motivational life quote proverbs that quite frankly piss people off and it even pissed me the **** off too. Yeah there’s things that are out of your control, but if you are always thinking about ignoring stuff that is, then that mean that whenever something bad happen to you or whenever something doesn’t go your way, you just think ‘oh it’s just out of my control’ or some other bull****. People are struggling and life is hard. You don’t tell them to take it easy, because life isn’t. Plus, you didn’t even give details to what they specifically said and why they disagreed. You just said ‘oh I presented a perfectly unarguable idea that they disagreed with. Don’t you guys hunk that I’m right and they’re wrong?’ Stfu already.

 

[R.U.G.]

Been there, done that, and even got a t-shirt. I've been told the same. Literally, word for word. Telling me things are different now. There are no opportunities now. Life is much harder for someone starting out now. Yada yada yada.. Bottom line, people are incredibly lazy nowadays. Since many have not really struggled (I.E. food/survival/etc.), they really do not know what hard is. I just let them be and live in their own little bubble of hopelessness.

 

[Infern0]

98% of people live in the matrix.

Also

Fragile ego's

 

[ShadowFenix]

What you said was one of those feel-good semi motivational life quote proverbs that quite frankly piss people off and it even pissed me the **** off too. Yeah there’s things that are out of your control, but if you are always thinking about ignoring stuff that is, then that mean that whenever something bad happen to you or whenever something doesn’t go your way, you just think ‘oh it’s just out of my control’ or some other bull****. People are struggling and life is hard. You don’t tell them to take it easy, because life isn’t. Plus, you didn’t even give details to what they specifically said and why they disagreed. You just said ‘oh I presented a perfectly unarguable idea that they disagreed with. Don’t you guys hunk that I’m right and they’re wrong?’ Stfu already.

This is actually pretty similar to what they said, but you spelled it out better than they did and it's good to see another perspective. I couldn't really understand why they were against it, and I did give counter arguments to what they said, but they weren't really good at articulating why they were against it. It's good to see it this way

Also don't go trying to meddle where people didn't ask for it. Don't be captain save a bro.

I think it all stems from a feeling of "but I'm right!". Yeah, but who really cares and what difference does it make?

I needed someone to tell me this. I think I've developed a tendency in my life to try to be captain save a bro because I've been there in my life and I hate to see others go through it. It all ends up leading to nothing because people have to want to change in the first place. It's a waste of everyone's time.

 

[wifehunter]

"As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly"

 

[Ryan Adams]

as a man who is guilty of this it's the way a mind tricks you into thinking you are doing nothing wrong.

 

[DEEZEDBRAH]

I tried sharing some of my philosophies about life with my close friends whom I've known for years (7+). I want to surround myself with like minded individuals, so of course I would try to get people to see the way I think, right? Especially when they're the friends I've known for years. I presented an idea that improved my life, so I wanted to share it in an attempt that they could improve their lives.

The point I shared was "Take control of things in life that you can control, rather than stressing on things completely out of your control."

This is completely reasonable, right?

They rejected it using reasoning like "Your way of life doesn't work for everyone" and "my choices in life don't matter." The point for the first one doesn't even address this part specifically, it's just an immediate dismissal of what I said, and the second point is just completely wrong from a self-improvement mindset.

That just makes me think that people aren't willing to even consider thinking a different way. Why is this?

Well, we live in a society that caters to the female biological strategy.

So, it looks like this.

Top form SMV 18-23, skiing down cawk mountain, chads booty call until he stops calling. Its now baby fever. So, she craters SMV running through dudes, gets the ring, children, and free resources once divorcing after having cut off her husband.

To a lot of women, its funny, and a power trip to control access.

The thing is, you cannot give away both access to resources and sex without putting a gun to your head. She has you at gun point.

A better disposition is to set boundaries. Low libido, no sex, #next!

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

OK, take Twitter as an example [which I am using to post Crypto charts]. Basically one creates a 'fellowship' by being an 'influencer' and having 'followers'. To me this [general phenomenon] reflects the loss of our capacity for critical thought - a person essentially subscribes to a simple single idea that happens to concern them. It creates an orthodoxy of a bizarre kind - there is a multiplicity of orthodoxies.. just as there is a multiplicity of bandwidths. People are effectively outsourcing their intelligence.

Now the few who hold on to their critical intelligence increasingly have the sentiment of resentment directed at them - 'who are you to think differently/ creatively!' It's a seeming paradox, where everyone thinks differently but the same... in the 'hive' there are many cells. But with critical intelligence, there is potential unity... as we all recognize the speculative nature of thought, and so retain our humor. Here you can disagree without taking offence, or taking ideas too seriously. We play a game, show generosity and tolerance... and maintain our sportsmanship.

I'd add that this is the crucial factor of our civility and our civilization. Without it, 'things fall apart'... both in ourselves and in the world.

 

[MoreThanSmooth]

Yeah, it's fatalism. There is no meaning, and no point in striving. People are largely living in a moral vacuum today, and our culture has been pretty much hollowed out by science and technology.

In this situation, individuals need to be 'awakened' at the existential level... to reject the orthodoxy of materialism. They then realize that their humanity is something like embodied spirit. They are then open to the world of ideals and possibilities, become curious and appreciative of the aesthetic realm, of art, of ideas such as justice, and in history, philosophy, ethics, and religion.

I disagree here with your assessment of science, though I agree that materialism as a life goal is vacuous and meaningless. Science is not the antithesis of philosophy and ethics. It's perfectly possible to approach reality in a scientific way while remaining ethical and even philosophical. Many of the most soulful and complete people I know are scientists.

If anything, people are becoming hollow husks because many of them don't even understand the scientific or rationalist approach to their reality, nor do they care. They'd rather lose themselves in mindless daytime TV, drugs, conspiracy theories and pop music rather than learn anything "difficult". They don't want to actually understand how their world/the economy/anything else controlling their future works on an objective level.

Flat Earthers are a perfect example. They could actually learn the science behind why the Earth is a spheroid (which is incredibly simple and reflects reality). But instead they prefer to believe YouTube videos by incredibly ignorant conspiracy theorists, because it validates them with instant gratification of "hidden knowledge" passed effortlessly to them rather than having to put effort into understanding a rational system themselves.

--

Anyway pertaining to the original question, studies have shown that trying to change a human's core beliefs is incredibly difficult. You can alter someone's opinions on a more superficial level, but our core beliefs become more hardwired over time.

Apparently if you scan someone's brain while feeding them beliefs they will fundamentally disagree with, you observe the same things you do with a fight-or-flight response. In other words, people are wired to consider a threat to their core beliefs the same as a threat to their life.

This evolved as a system to unify us when we were living in the wild, but these days it's a natural barrier to realising our potential as a species and taking on new ideas.

 

[Murk]

Human nature, nobody likes to be corrected.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

I disagree here with your assessment of science, though I agree that materialism as a life goal is vacuous and meaningless. Science is not the antithesis of philosophy and ethics. It's perfectly possible to approach reality in a scientific way while remaining ethical and even philosophical. Many of the most soulful and complete people I know are scientists.
.

There are undoubtedly some scientists that are also good ethical upstanding citizens of our society. But I'd suggest they have a long tradition and culture to thank for that... not science. Science is about the observable, about exerting power over the environment, and perhaps even forebodingly over ourselves.

If anything, people are becoming hollow husks because many of them don't even understand the scientific or rationalist approach to their reality, nor do they care. They'd rather lose themselves in mindless daytime TV, drugs, conspiracy theories and pop music rather than learn anything "difficult". They don't want to actually understand how their world/the economy/anything else controlling their future works on an objective level.

And there is a logic to how science and technology develops. It promotes a specialization, which actually encourages people not to think to hard about various aspects of life... for there are specialists to do it for us. Most people don't think because they have 'outsourced' their intelligence.

And genuine intelligence is itself something that can not lie prostrate before the all-encompassing interpretation of science... for intelligence is itself what provides the interpretation. The reality is that just as science is power over the environment, it is also power over people's minds.... until it isn't, and therein lies freedom.

This evolved as a system to unify us when we were living in the wild, but these days it's a natural barrier to realising our potential as a species and taking on new ideas

we the species, we the people, it's all an abstraction. The reality is you and I. It is this reality that people are struggling to live with as they have not been prepared/ educated. Hence all the escapisms and addictions.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

Human nature, nobody likes to be corrected.

This egalitarian/ levelling instinct of the masses was pointed out early on by Nietzsche, who identified it as 'resentiment'.

 

[The Diver]

Human nature, nobody likes to be corrected.

Anecdote:
I have a tenant who rent a room in my backyard, 31 y/o, single, handsome, tall , but very much a bluepilled Nice Guy type of a guy.
In the past year he have been in contact with many women, on Tinder and other app', but he's doing every mistakes available, and never secure a date , all ghosted on him. When I tried to give him few tips on how to improve his communication with those women, he furiously defend his "blue pill tactic" and refused all my advices, despite me prove him, time after time, that his way just not working.

As for now, and out of frustration, he deleted his Tinder and all other accounts, blaming it all on women , and still ridiculously continue defending his "blue pill tactic".

So Yea, very hard to change someone mind, if they don't want to.

 

[Roober]

People are resistant to change. Human brains love patterns and activities that reinforce those ingrained patterns.

It's why people...
-order the same thing at restaurants
-rewatch movies or TV shows
-have the same morning routine
-fall into routines with kids

We are physiologically wired to follow habits and patterns, it's part of our biology.

 

[ChristopherColumbus]

The thing is to develop good habits and break bad ones...