What is the problem with simply relying on intellectual analysis?

• Humans are not good predictors of their future feelings

Whenever you attempt to use intellectual analysis to figure out a problem it is inevitable that you will try to factor your feelings into the equation. You ask yourself questions such as, “If I take this job (or pursue this new relationships or move to another city) how will I feel about this? Will I enjoy this? Will it make me happy?” But here is where a fundamental flaw comes into play – humans are known to be poor at predicting how they will feel in the future. A short extract from a fascinating book called Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, explains why this is so:

“Because predictions about the future are made in the present they are inevitably influenced by the present. The way we feel right now (‘I’m so hungry’) and the way we think right now (‘The big speakers sound better than the little ones’) exert an usually strong influence on the way we think we’ll feel later. Because time is such a slippery concept, we tend to imagine the future as the present with a twist, thus our imagined tomorrows inevitably look like slightly twisted versions of today. The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes. ... We fail to recognize that our future selves won’t see the world the way we see it now.”

If we can’t imagine our future feelings accurately, then we cannot really discover the answers to the important question as to how a new situation will make us feel unless we actually experience it.

• Our thinking processes are constrained by our upbringing, assumptions, and beliefs

Many of the fundamental beliefs and assumptions that underlay our personal thinking and decision process are so much an imbedded part of who we are that they lie beyond our conscious awareness and our ability to observe how they limit our ability to think “outside the box.” Essentially we “are the box” and it is hard to step outside ourselves to see how we are getting in our own way. Our blindness causes us to miss options or opportunities that are within our easy grasp.

• There are too many variables

Actual experience is multi-dimensional. When you try to imagine a future possibility or mentally explore a future option there are quite simply too many factors to consider and these factors are often out of your control – for example they may involve the reactions of other people to what you choose to do or say.