I just read Tim Wilson's fascinating book, Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious. It's a succinct synopsis of a lot of scientific research, and that research speaks loud and clear: Much of the time we don't know why we do the things we do. Also, we don't know as much as we think we do about our futures.
Yet, as Wilson himself suggests, these facts should in no way depress us or make us feel 'trapped.' Instead, because we're intellgient self-reflective creatures, we can learn valuable lessons about the way we are and plan accordingly. Let's take a couple of examples to do with personal prediction (a specialty of mine):
1. People aren't great at predicting how they'll feel in the future. This is particularly the case for negative events. People tend to overestimate how badly they will be affected by disagreeable occurrences in their lives. If you ask a professor how she'll feel if she's denied tenure, or how someone will feel if he were to suddenly lose a loved one, the predictions would be extreme. Those asked would talk of months and years of devastation and misery. They'd be wrong. To be sure, there would be times that they wouldn't feel great, extremely sad even. But, they'd get over it. We are remarkably resilient creatures and we tend to underestimate that resiliency.
2. Not an example from Wilson's book, but certainly one close to my heart: People are not great at predicting when they're going to get things done. My, and many others', research shows this time and time again. We tend to focus our sights on a rosy future in which nothing at all goes wrong. We do this, to the nines, again and again.
Yeesh. Looks like we are somewhat 'stuck' with being bad predictors of our futures.
But!
We can learn about this tendency and correct for it (although probably not fully). That's the great thing about being human. We can learn about ourselves and grow.
Having learned that you're more resilient than you thought should hopefully give you a bit of a push toward being a little more daring, a little more adventurous. Maybe you'll try chatting with that woman on the bus who you've had a little crush on for some time now. Or maybe you'll submit that great American novel to a couple of publishers. In both cases, the rejection (if it comes) will sting. But not nearly as much or for as long as you think it will.
Also, having learned that your predictions of task completion are out of whack should encourage you to be careful in your predictions. Think about obstacles. Think about intervening events. Think about lack of motivation . . .
So, yes, in the moment we certainly can be strangers to ourselves. Because we're human, though, things are not so bleak. We can study ourselves, learn about ourselves, see the patterns, and correct accordingly. You may never be able to escape the feeling that the cold shoulder or a rejection slip will be 'the worst thing that ever happened to you,' but you may be able to push yourself into giving it a go anyways.
