Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Split-second Belief


When you shoot a basketball into the air, toward a hoop, immediately you are struck by an opinion about whether it's going to go in or not. Sometimes the opinion is very certain. Sometimes its not so certain, but that feeling strikes you regardless of whether or not you want it to. The opinion which strikes you is a belief, and you don't have a say in the matter. I know this is what my last article was about, but I keep meeting people who think that belief is a choice, so this is still on my mind.

The above basketball analogy came to me just recently, and I think it encapsulates how I see this issue very well. Belief happens constantly and so does choice. We are always making decisions and prioritizing and planning and acting and communicating. Belief and choice are different functions of our brain, I think. Belief is a part of our perception. We act on our beliefs, or should I say, we try to act on our beliefs. I think the more time we have to make a decision, the more likely that a decision will directly reflect our beliefs.