Idealism and How It Relates to Dichotomous Thinking
When we’re young, we seem to develop a lot of ideals. By this, I mean we are attempting to figure out what we want from our life, so we form these idealized situations. For example, I knew that I wanted to be married by 25 and have my first child when I was 27. As we all should know, things don’t always work out how we plan. I never ended up getting married, ever, and my first child was born when I was 31!
Idealism is defined as the belief that things can be perfect. When we are young, I like to think of it as dreaming up the kind of life we want. I think this is great - it’s helpful to do when figuring out what we want our life goals to look like, and basically the direction in which we want our life to go.
Dichotomous thinking on the other hand is defined as black and white thinking. It’s either this, or that - nothing in between. I think when we’re young, we all have a touch of dichotomous thinking. We don’t have the vision yet of all the possible scenarios that could happen - this only comes with experience and wisdom.
It’s interesting actually, because I was reading my Fever Series novels by Karen Marie Moning (specifically Bloodfever). In it, the character is speaking to an older woman who is a head mistress of a specific guild, and the older woman was saying that there is only black and white; “grey is only shades of black, and white is white”. MacKayla, the main character of the story was arguing that there are shades of grey.
I see a parallel here in real life, except usually, we see this black and white thinking in youth. For example, when I was younger, before kids, I would say things like “I would never give my kids McDonalds - that’s so unhealthy!”, or “My kids won’t use technology - they’ll learn how to do math on paper!” Now, with much more experience and three kids later, I laugh at my “ideals”. I truly haven't followed any of those things that I once talked about. I don’t think you can claim to know what to do in a situation that you’ve never experienced before.
It’s easy for us to judge and say what we would do, but how do you know what you would do? Life changes so fast - one minute, you’re watching a play and the next, you’re immersed in an experience everyone now has access to - VR (virtual reality) technology. We are in a new age of being, and we need to also change our ways of thinking just as quickly.
It got me interested in knowing what would happen if a person still thought in black and white when they got older. According to research, this dichotomous thinking pattern is a common feature of borderline personality disorder. It may also come into play when you have anxiety, depression, narcissistic personality disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.
People who display dichotomous thinking, or black and white thinking cannot see themselves having a problem, and instead, see others as having the issue. This can contribute to interpersonal problems and is a large explanation as to why they do not get along with certain people. It’s not them who has the problem - it has got to be the other person.
I truly believe that idealism is a product of youth, and generally, most of us grow up and out of that stage when we realize life is dynamic and fluid. Things change and we must adapt and also become fluid. If things are always black and white, it makes it harder to adapt. We cannot leave emotion out of the picture, because without emotion, we lose what gives us our humanity.
Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!
❤️ Sandra
