Sometimes we draw extreme and definitive conclusions, following a traumatic event that we have experienced.
Examples:
1) Someone breaks ties with his mother or even with his whole family following an argument he had with her.
2) A person decides to reduce their ties with society because they have been the victim of a case where they made a fool of themselves.
In either case, the person may have been right in the argument they had with their mother, and may not. The same goes for someone who has cut ties with society: he may have been laughed at "rightly" (because he acted in a moody way) or "wrongly" (because he dealt with bad guys). But that's not what it's all about, but the fact that following a traumatic event has led us to make extreme decisions, of which we are the first to suffer the consequences.
In the first example, perhaps the person inferred from the argument with his mother that she did not love him, which is not true at all. Her mother may excuse herself, beg her to come back, but nothing will! He will not reconsider his decision. Even if in his heart, he recognizes that his decision to break contact with her was wrong, he will not back down because if he did, it would damage his self-esteem.
Such is human nature! If a person thinks he is right about something, then he thinks he must be right about everything. He doesn't want to tolerate the idea that maybe he was wrong here and there because that would plunge him into anguish. Worse! He is even willing to state that he made mistakes throughout, but not that he made mistakes here and there.
We can see this with our political positions: if we were really honest with ourselves, we should recognize that there is truth in what the left and the right are saying. That on some decisions the party we chose was right and on others it was wrong. But no! Most people decide to vote left, right or center. And from then on, they save themselves the pain involved in constantly questioning themselves.
I want to point out a fact here and that is that people behave more emotionally than rationally.
In the second example, the person concluded that he was “not social”. I have been in this situation for many years: because of certain cases where my friends made fun of me (perhaps with good reason), I decided that everyone hated me and that the only way to reduce these cases to naught was to speak to no one. I hadn't noticed the following things:
- If I keep quiet, I only exacerbate the problem: people will really conclude that I am not sociable.
- If I accept myself and forgive myself when I make mistakes, then others will also accept me and forget about it. On the contrary, if I am ready to accept the nonsense that I do, I will be treated like someone who has a sense of humor.
- If I look around me, then I will realize that we all make mistakes sometimes, but not all of us have enough confidence in ourselves to put this on the agenda.