Thought Holes and the Value of Freethought

How to overcome adversity with critical thinking.

There is a great article over at edutopia on thought holes - http://www.edutopia.org/blog/SEL-filling-in-thought-holes-renee-jain

What I like about it is that it is actually a lesson in critical and creative thinking. Basically, the article talks about how our perception of reality is distorted and how those distortions affect our moods, thoughts, actions etc. If we have a negative distortion that we believe is true, even when it isn’t, it can cause us to do stupid things and that would be bad.

The article then goes on to identify 8 common thought holes or distortions and suggests correcting them by doing 3 Cs:

• Checking to see if you have entered a thought hole

• Collecting evidences to see if it is a thought hole and if it is

• Challenging your original thoughts

I am a Humanist and Humanists engage in freethought. Freethought is a way to challenge our thinking because our thinking is biased and it can cause us to make mistakes. By actively checking and challenging your thoughts and testing them against reality, you can avoid mistakes. And that’s always a good thing. This is why Humanists are always going on and on about the necessity of critical thinking and freethought.

The good news is that doing this works. It works really well. Check to see if you made a mistake in your thinking; collect evidence to verify whether you have or not and if you have, challenge the incorrect thoughts and replace them with more accurate ones. That’s pretty much freethought in a nutshell.

The next time you start thinking that you aren’t good enough and that no one likes you so you might as well go eat some worms, think again. You may just find that the adversity you were working so hard to overcome didn’t really exist in the first place.

Question: Which of the fallacy (ie: thought holes) do you fall prey to most often? Personally, I tend to mentally filter.

What is loneliness and how to get help for depression

What to do for depression and how you can you overcome the feelings of loneliness that come with it? 6 ways Humanists overcome depression.

According to experts, loneliness is not about being alone, it is about the perception that you are alone or isolated and the feelings of depression that accompany this perception. . This is why there are people who are happy being alone and others who feel lonely in a crowd.

My approach to the universal of problem of loneliness and the depression that comes with it to be both analytic and proactive about my feelings and the conditions that are making me feel this way. I am a Humanist and if you’ve been a fan for a while, you know I talk and teach how compassion for others helps cure that feeling of loneliness because instead of being stuck inside your head where you are effectively isolated, you reach out and consider other people which has the benefit of getting you out of your head. To me, loneliness is a sign of depression. I am not an expert, I am a philosopher, but I do think that these conditions are linked and so I approach loneliness in the same way I tackle feelings of depression.

But to be more specific, let’s consider some more practical ways you can combat loneliness and start feeling better.

1) When I am depressed or feeling lonely, I like to go out and be around people. I know for some people it makes them feel more lonely. I always figure, when I am depressed, I need to fight the urge to stay home and wallow and get out among the living and life and remind myself, yup, I’m alive. Might suck right now, but it’s better than the alternative. It feels uncomfortable to feel alone and to be around people who clearly feel connected to others, but I turn that feeling around by acknowledging it. I use that feeling of being uncomfortable to remind myself – that’s what I’m shooting for. This is my goal. To be happy I’m alive. Then, I start working towards that goal. Without a goal, I am likely to wallow.

2) I also make sure that I am taking vitamins. It doesn’t hurt to take vitamins but there is always a possibility that my mood is caused by a chemical imbalance in my brain. We are, after all big bags of chemicals. Making sure my body has the basic nutrients it needs is basic body maintenance.

3) Another way to approach feeling less lonely is to volunteer somewhere. Be useful to someone and help other people. It will help you make friends with new people with similar interests and you will be doing something good for other people and that always feels good. Plus, when you stop thinking about yourself and how pathetic you are, you stop feeling lonely. Fill up your brain with thoughts of how you can help others and you won’t have much time to feel that you don’t matter to others. When you volunteer, you do matter.

4) When I am feeling lonely I make a concerted effort to reach out to the folks I know and with friends and make arrangements to do things with them. As adults, our lives get busy and it’s harder to find time for friends and for friends to find time for us. If I reach out and someone can’t do something with me, I reach out again and again and again until I find someone who has the time. In other words, I am proactive about coping with my loneliness. I don’t wait for a miracle. I go out and find people to be around. If a friend isn’t available for one get together, I suggest another. And I make myself flexible and available to meet on their schedule. And I’m ok with the fact that I might not be as attuned or relaxed and that I might be a bit distant because of my depression. The more I go out with people, the less alone I feel and I know that for me, it is necessary to get back into balance emotionally. Plus, I have found that if I am honest with my friends about how I am feeling and why I am asking them for help, most are more than eager to be there to comfort and assist just by being present. You may be surprised at just how much people care about you. Again, feeling lonely is mostly a problem of perception.

5) If the loneliness is romance related, I think to myself, it’s ok that I am alone romantically and I focus instead on making friends. My goal is to be happy by myself. Be proactive about that. When you stop looking for love, and start looking for friends, you greatly open up your romantic possibilities. It’s really hard to stop looking for love because it’s always in the back of your head. But what happens is that when you are looking for friends, not love, you meet people of different genders for friendship and that helps ease the loneliness. It also makes you a better romantic partner because you won’t be looking to your partner to fill the emptiness inside you, which they can’t do anyway. You have to fill it with yourself. You do that by focusing outward on the needs of others instead of yourself. This is again, a lesson in the benefits of compassion. You learn to love yourself by loving others first. Not in a selfish, what can they do to help me feel better way, but on their terms for them sort of way. It really does work. Then, when you do meet people of your preferred gender and you find someone you are compatible with this approach translates into romance better than just viewing everyone you meet through the lens of whether they will go out with you or not. It’s stifling to the people you meet to be only considered valuable if they are available. It’s also demeaning and dehumanizing. People want to be liked for who they are. Not just because of their gender and their availability. Plus, considering people you meet as humans and not as potential partners is a much more humanistic way to approach romance and friendship.

6) Finally, if I find I can’t shake the ennui I go to a professional for help. My first stop is my doctor. I have blood work done and see if there is something off balance in my chemistry. If not and everything is fine, I seek out a psychologist. Acknowledging you are feeling bad enough to need help is empowering. It’s kind of strange that it is, but it is. So if you are feeling that bad, go seek a professional.

How do you cure your loneliness?

How to parent like a Humanist

Why taking a responsible, compassionate, ethical and respectful approach to parenting benefits you, your children and the society in which we all live.

Humanism is a philosophy that encourages us to think of every human we meet as being worthy of dignity and respect. This includes children. And, it includes our children. A Humanist parent does not think of their children as property. They are autonomous human beings, ones that we have particular responsibility for by virtue of being their parent.

This impacts all aspects of parenting and influences our parenting style. Because our children are fully human we have an ethical responsibility to treat them compassionately, ethically, and respectfully. We are also privileged with the task of raising them and caring for them. And even though that is difficult task and it never seems to end and there is always something that we have to deal with, it is satisfying. Why? Because being responsible feels good. Living up to and taking our responsibilities seriously feels good. It’s difficult but it gives our lives meaning and purpose. And isn’t that something that most people struggle with?

Embracing that responsibility fully is part of how a Humanist parents. And because we are Humanists we do spend some time thinking about how we want to parent so that we aren’t just reactive to our children, but proactive in providing them with learning experiences and support and encouragement so that they can grow into an adult we like, as a human being.

I tell my son every day that I love him. The other night he said, you tell me that all the time. When I reminded him that it feels good to be told and to say it, he said, but you have to love me. I said, no I don’t. There is no rule that says a parent has to love their child. I happen to love mine not only because he is adorable, but because I genuinely like him and like spending time with him and I derive a great deal of pleasure caring for him. If I didn’t recognize him as fully human, I can’t imagine feeling this way. My responsibilities towards him would be more of a burden. By acknowledging his humanity, I am able to connect with him as a human and therefore as a Humanist.

How does a Humanist parent? For me it means I parent with compassion, respect and in an ethically responsible way. How has being a Humanist influenced you as a parent?

Humans are social animals

Humanism helps us focus on what is really important, our relationships.

My friend Judy asked me to write on this topic, so I am. She told me, “I really like this idea Relationships – we are social animals and we need other people to feel secure. Nurture close relationships and treat them well. A bunch of shallow friends don’t give you the same benefits that close friends and family do.”

And she’s right. We are social animals. We need other people. One of the values of Humanism is that it reminds us of the fact that not only are we a social animal. So is everyone else.

Humanism reminds us that we need to remember that the people we meet are real. This helps us to connect with them in a real way. For some reason this is really hard to do. But if we make the effort, which requires us to feel compassion, we are rewarded with a sense of belonging and connectedness that is both inspiring and nurturing all at the same time.

We humans are funny animals. We both need and strive for autonomy. And we need and strive to feel connected. As a result, we always seem to be out of balance. Too autonomous or too dependent.

I am reminded of a quote by Blaise Pascal: “A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.”

For me, I find that it is only when I consider other people compassionately, that I am able to be both autonomous and connected at the same time rather than being at one extreme or the other. The requirements and obligations of responsibility towards others are things that I choose autonomously. They are not foisted upon me. I do them out of love.

The benefit of this approach is that it helps me more easily nurture those relationships that matter to me and to not take them for granted while not feeling overburdened by them or hemmed in by them. It’s a choice. Like everything.

I am not a number!

Why recognizing your employees as human matters

Engage Britain put out a great video called, “I am not a Human Resource, I am a Human.” I wanted to share it here to talk about the reasons why recognizing your employees as humans matter.





Humanistic business management starts from the premise that business is done by humans for humans and that humans matter. It is very easy to view employees as interchangeable cogs in a machine. People who are there to do what you want and need them to do. You are paying them, so that is the end of the contract.

The problem is that your employees want and need more and so do you. Humans are social animals. We need community. We need a sense of belonging. We need a sense of purpose. Anyone who gives us that will have our loyalty. This is why there are cults. Instead of denying your employees the opportunity to be engaged with their fellow employees and for the cause that is your business, why not help them feel connected and engaged. Stop viewing them as a human resource and start recognizing them as the very real human being they are.

This isn’t something you can fake. You either take the time to connect or you don’t. What will help you do this? Eleanor Roosevelt had the right idea. Treat all your employees as if they are volunteers. You and they will feel better and do better work if you do.

Have you ever experienced being devalued at work? How did you handle it? Bonus points to any geek who gets the title reference!

Who am I?

Finding an answer to this most important question is a quest worth taking.

Who am I?  That is one of those questions that is deceptively simple, yet has no easy answer. I am complex.

Paul Creedon, the Practical Humanist, wrote a great post about this, talking about the process of creating identity – see it here http://thepracticalhumanist.blogspot.com/2012/12/identity.html  It is a lovely peice.

I like that he makes the answer to this question more about the journey to finding an answer, than it is about the answer itself. He is more concerned with how he approaches the journey than he is with the fact that who he is is constantly changing.  I think that is an excellent way to approach this basic existential question.

For me, my practice of humanism starts with the question, not who am I? But rather, who do I really want to be? Now, in this current situation and in the future.  Who I am matters, but who I want to be matters more.

This is why it is a journey. A journey that never ends – or a never ending story – love it. And this is why I like my identity as a Humanist so much. It’s not that I have a set dogmatic idea of who I am. It is that I remind myself that I want to be the best human I can be requires me to constantly challenge myself to do and be better. And I find that process immensely satisfying even if it is never complete.

How to be Proactive

Why be responsible? So you don’t make mistakes and you fix problems promptly.

What does it mean to be proactive and why should you care? Proactive behavior means anticipating problems and fixing them before they happen. It contrasts with reactive behavior which is all about fixing the problem after it occurs.

What does this have to do with Humanism? Humanists spend a lot of time thinking. We think about what is ethical. We think about how to be compassionate. We think about responsibilities and more. The reason we do all this thinking is not so that we end up in thinking limbo, but so that we can be proactive in our lives.

We all make mistakes. As a Humanist, I would prefer to avoid the avoidable mistakes if at all possible. I know the only way to do avoid making mistakes is to think about the problems and the potential problems I am likely to make before they actually become problems. This allows me to not only avoid making mistakes; it also allows me to fix problems promptly when I do make them. Because I expect to make them and so am proactive in dealing with them.

To me, this is what it means to be responsible. It is also the answer to the question, why be responsible? If you want to be successful you need to avoid as many mistakes as possible and to do that, you have to be proactive and responsible for avoiding and correcting your mistakes. This is why we Humanists think so much and spend so much time thinking about how we think.

Why be responsible and learn how to think well? So you can proactively fix problems so that you don’t make mistakes in the first place.

What is the most common mistake you make and what do you do to avoid it?

Responsibility and Possibility

What if I could help one person today?

I love what if questions. They open up a world of possibilities. One of the participants on the Applied Humanism discussion group at LinkedIn – Suellen, asked this what if question.

“What if I could help one person today?”

I love this question! It is a reminder to be responsible for making the world a better place. But that we don’t have to set out to change the world. We just have to help one person. As Suellen goes on to say, “the value of this question is that it keeps change "do-able" but embraces the possibility of forward momentum via the domino effect.”

This is such a perfect question for a Humanist because it is about responsibility and possibility.

I recently read a book - Piece by Piece by Wendy Naarup - which was actually a really good book despite the supernatural afterlife part of it. In it, one of the questions asked is, did you do something nice for someone today. I have started asking my son that question when I ask him how things went at school. The expectation is that we will all do something nice for someone every day. It can be little, as long as you make an effort.

So, what have you done to help someone today?

Positive Parenting vs. Humanistic Parenting

Is there a difference between humanistic parenting and positive parenting? Do the differences matter?

To answer these questions, we have to first understand what positive parenting is and how it might contrast with Humanist or Humanistic parenting is. So what is positive parenting? Positive parenting is a parenting style also known as positive discipline. This all has to do with child behavior and how to discipline children effectively so that we raise well behaved adults who embody the values we care about as parents.

It turns out there are a lot of different parenting styles and positive parenting is a reaction against the forms of parenting that use negative discipline or punishment. How to discipline a child is an ongoing discussion for most parents. I know I get asked a lot of questions about it. Now, as a Humanist parent, I do engage in positive parenting or positive discipline. Why? Because it works. Humanism is ultimately a very pragmatic philosophy. We want to do what works.

Here’s why, and if you’ve read my book The Bully Vaccine, you already know this. Psychologists have studied human learning and how best to cause learning and it turns out that punishment is incredibly counterproductive to learning. In fact: if a child or any animal is doing something you don’t want them to do, punishing them isn’t going to get them to stop. Negative reinforcement is still reinforcement. It turns out that if you want them to stop, you have to remove reinforcements entirely, which is why positive parents use time outs and natural and logical consequences to discourage their children from behaving in a way that is not ok. So yes, according to what we know about these matters, The positive parenting style is a good style.

So how does this contrast with Humanistic Parenting? Well, it doesn’t much. Really, it just as matter of why we approach parenting the way we do. A Humanist approaches the question of how to parent compassionately, respectfully, responsibly and with an eye towards raising ethical, compassionate responsible adults. We start with the assumption that the child is an autonomous human being. They are responsible for choosing their behavior, just like we all are. Our job as parents is to help teach them how to make good decisions for themselves. We still have to discipline and encourage our child to behave better, the issue is how.

Most Humanists seem to prefer an authoritative parenting style. (See: http://psychology.about.com/od/childcare/f/authoritative-parenting.htm for more information) To me, positive parenting addresses only the question of how to discipline a child. Humanist and authoritative parenting goes beyond that into also addressing how to get a child to think for themselves to choose good behavior on their own.

Because they don't rely on negative discipline or punishment, positive parenting classes and programs focus on alternative ways to gain child compliance with the needs of the adults and fellow family members. So negotiation, discussion, active engagement of the child in problem solving, natural consequences, removal of rewards and more are all part of the alternatives used. Most Humanist parents use all those tools and more. I think the only real difference is that a Humanist parent is going to prefer those methods that most encourage autonomy and the ability to think independently.


So to answer the question, is there a difference? Yes and no. Positive parenting is just one of the many tools a Humanist parent uses. We are as concerned with raising good thinkers and ethically compassionate kids as we are with raising well behaved kids and our parenting style reflects that emphasis.
What do you think of positive parenting? What parenting style do you prefer?