Thinking Shallow and Deep

I always wonder the quality of my thinking? If am a deep thinker or not?

Thinking is the core of our being we are not taught how to think. It is a skill we are expected to know without specific instructions. Deep thinking leads to deeper living, while Superficial, shallow thinking produces a superficial life.

We have two primary modes of thinking to process information and make decisions.

1. Intuitive, instant, unconscious, automatic and emotional.
2. Slow, rational, conscious, reflective, reasoning and deliberate.

At any point in time, active thoughts and actions varies depending on the mode that is running. Slow, deliberate, focused and logical thinking is often applied to complex problems. Deliberate thought is more reliable but we rarely stop, reflect, and make slow decisions, because in many situations our responses are automatic hence the need to sharpen our thinking skills.

Shallow thinkers rarely think beyond the obvious. They take information on the face value and look at first-order consequences. On the other hand, a deep thinker looks at the whole chain of effects, impacts, and outcomes before making a decision.

Shallow thinkers are incapable, lazy to look at all sides of an issue or to explore the issues deeply before making judgment or decision and they strongly believe they are right. They also believe they have depth behind their opinion, because they believe their opinion is also based on the truth and indisputable facts.

A shallow thinker solves one problem with one known solution while a deep thinker approaches multiple problems from different angles.

In conclusion, when you dig deeper, you will understand better. You will compare different outcomes, analyze, dissect and make informed judgment based on different mental models.

I invite you to think deeper always.