COGNITIVE DISSONANCE: A CONFUSION IN EVERONE’S MIND

The thoughtful people often struggle with the term given by psychologists and philosophers called “Cognitive Dissonance”. What does this actually mean? Let us understand this by very stick example of your daily routine confusions. 

You read a lot of good things in books, newspapers and watch good content on social media which drives you thinking that this world is so good and full of wonderful people with great ideas. But soon you come to know about wars happening, terrorists activities, nature degradation just for the selfish hunger of some people. You realise about bad politics and corrupted politicians, greedy corporations and cruel people around you. 

Which is why it becomes very difficult for you to live with these two truths which are the actual facts of this world. Your mind becomes confused whether the world is good or bad. However, it’s a common confusion, may be, in everyone’s thoughts in one or another aspect in their lives. 

So what can you do about it. 

Accept both the truths

Actually, there is nothing you can do except to clarify this which is that the world is not entirely good or bad, it’s both. And, the bad doesn’t cancel the good, they coexist. One more beautiful thing you need to know is that the good seems to be good because bad is there or the value of light comes only when there is darkness. Accepting both of these truths is what makes you more mindful and mature. 

Focus on yourself 

As you cannot do anything about the global politics or corruption but what you can do is to understand yourself deeply and be focused on your life. You can be truly honest in your work and life while having an idea of what is happening in this world. Your good doings will never be in vain, rather they will add a great contribution towards making this world a better place. You need to shift your focus from “how bad things are” to “what i can do” and you will feel less helpless and more grounded. 

Read both the sides

Become aware and keep reading both sides of the world. Read good articles and literature but also do the reality checks of this world. You don’t need to believe that everything is good to stay positive, but awareness with hope is the goal. By doing so you will be able to see this world in a balanced and peaceful way which further strengthens your thought stability and cognitive abilities. 

Protect your emotional energy

The addiction of social media is such that you forget the amount of screen time you are having and waste a lot of time throughout your day scrolling negative content and bad news. This costs you your emotional energy and most importantly your precious time. What you need to do is to stay in touch with good people and good reading material to maintain your confidence and to avoid cognitive dissonance. By avoiding social media and bad people you are not ignoring the reality, but guarding your peace so you can face it better. 

Find your own place

Finding a place means you need to know where you can read good articles, where you do 5-10 minutes meditation, where you can find good people, where you can sit and feel fresh, what activities you can do to make you satisfied with your life, what are the places that bring adventure and joy in your life. If you know all of these or more things, you can find peace and happiness in your life. 

These things can be different for different people, so it’s your responsibility to find them out and implement them in. 

Now, there may be people in this world who can never face this term called cognitive dissonance because they are either this side or that side. Many people see only bad side of the world by following same type of people on social media and reading all the bad news, on the other hand there are people who only read good things and are not able to see what is actually happening around them. 

Both of these kinds are bad for the society because the first case will not do anything good as he has admitted the fact that the world is bad and it’s out of his hands to do any good deeds whereas the second case without any knowledge of realities of the world will never know the areas of improvement which leads them to think that the world is so good by the grace of god. 

Which is why there was Mahabharata which teaches us both truths of the world. 

We all need to read about Krishna and his philosophies to understand cognitive dissonance even better. Because Krishna is the god for good people and demon for the bad people.