One of the most interesting bits of truth I discovered today, is societal programming.

Here, we're far too aware of how society trains men to placate to women, place them on pedestals, to cater to every whim of a woman.

What I've never seen written though, is a simple way to catch yourself repeating something you were programmed to believe, rather than something you came to a logical conclusion on.

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Here's the trick:

Explain your rationalisation to yourself. If you can give concrete points, bullet points - as to why X is bad or Y is good, perfect.

Catch yourself though on any logical fallacies.

The most obvious one is "X is bad because it's bad". Or if you catch yourself in a cyclical reasoning. And especially if your argument is based on emotions.

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An example

Most people would have issues with a 45 year old guy dating a 20 year old woman. Society absolutely hates this.

It's bad because he's so much older, and she's being manipulated, and he has too much power over her, she's not safe with him, and, and, and it just feels wrong!.

The first is that on a consensual relationship, none of those are facts. She's not being manipulated. Being safe would still be an issue if she dated someone her age as well, psychopaths don't have an age limit.

But if you think logically about that argument, could you find a real reason, bullet point list, on exactly why it's bad?

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Murder is wrong

It is. You are taking life away from someone. You are hurting them, their family, and their loved ones. You are committing a crime that you will likely be punished for. You will likely live with the guilt of what you have done.

Those are concrete reasons for why murder is bad. All of them are based on logical facts and not just vague emotions of murder just feels wrong.

And of course yes this is also societal programming, of course - but it's still programming you can rationalize (so long as you're not a psychopath).

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Conclusion

When you catch yourself holding a belief, learn to question it to see where it comes from. Learn to understand when something you think is really something you think or if it's something others have programmed you to think.

And with this also comes - when you want to do something, say, focus like hell on making money and just money -- or, not wanting to do something, like not "manning up" to a girl with a kid already -- think -- is this really something you believe, or something we want you to believe?