Monday, March 5, 2007

Post 8 – Free Writing “Critical Thinking"

“The unexamined life is not worth living” is a quote from the famous Greek Philosopher Socrates. This quote to me personally, not only signifies the importance of developing critical thinking skills, but critical in consistently using them.

The easiest, simplest definition of critical thinking is to simply think for your self and not believe everything you hear. With our culture nowadays constantly bombarding us with advertisements, about how to live life, and what to buy it’s easy for us to easily believe what ever they are advertising without critical thinking. For example, when my wife and I bought our first home, we looked for a professional mortgage broker to help us finance our home. We ended up talking to about nine or more different mortgage brokers before finally deciding who we wanted to hire. Each mortgage broker promised and guaranteed us that they were the absolute best for the job. They all claimed that they could get us the cheapest rates in the market. After my wife and I used critical thinking by doing some homework about the market and comparing all the mortgage brokers to each other, we found that not all of them were suited for the job. Some of the mortgage brokers were charging an insanely amount for their services, which they would try to hide, by being persuasive and friendly. By using critical thinking we eventually hired a mortgage broker to help us finance our new home.

If my wife and I would have not used our critical thinking skills, while hiring a mortgage broker we would of easily fallen victims to a bad one. Critical thinking should always be used before doing or believing something you hear. Don’t let others think for you, but take the stand to think for your self. As Author Marva Collins says "Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide."

No comments: