Take control of your desires

The source for this material and for our 25-Day CT Challenge is… 25 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living: A Guide for Improving Every Aspect of Your Life, by Dr. Linda Elder & Dr. Richard Paul, Pearson, 2006; and the Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking, CA.

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR DESIRES

Check Your Desires… “Look closely at the implications of desires in your life; “Seek to identify which of your desires you can admit and which you try to hide; “Notice how often you pursue irrational desires.” (Drs. Elder and Paul, Ibid)

Be on the Lookout for Desires… “Check the desires of others; “Notice how often people pursue irrational desires; “Notice how often people try to justify self-serving desires; “Notice how they object to self-serving desires of others.” (Drs. Elder & Paul, Ibid)

To be in command of your life …is to be in command of your thoughts, …and to be in command of your thoughts, you have to get command of the desires that direct your behavior

A self-reflective thinker differentiates Irrational desires Desires that are self- destructive Desires that are harmful to others Desires that make sense Desires that can be justified Desires that are helpful to others Desires that are conducive to a fulfilling life

Taking Control of Your Desires Realize that most irrational desires function at the unconscious level of thought Bring unconscious desires to the conscious level Formulate your purposes, goals, motives explicitly So that you can assess them (Drs. Elder and Paul, Ibid)

Critical Thinkers Understand… The relationship between Thoughts Feelings Emotions That whenever you have desires, you have thinking leading to those desires You experience feelings when you act on those desires (Elder & Paul, Ibid)

Critical Thinkers routinely assess the desires guiding their behavior and analyze the thinking that gives rise to those desires

Take command of your desires Otherwise, it is all too easy to pursue the irrational, the self-destructive, the senseless without knowing why (Drs. Elder and Paul, Ibid)

Unbridled desires cause much suffering e.g., Pursuits of greed Pursuits of power Pursuits for approval Pursuits of domination Develop conscious habits to monitor these all-to-often natural, but harmful human desires.

Strategies for controlling your desires: 1. Recognize that every action you take is driven by some purpose or desire that you have (Strategies suggested by Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul, Ibid) Make a list of every behavior that leads to humiliation, pain, suffering Question why you engage in this behavior Identify what motivates you

…strategies, cont’d 2. Think through the implications of each behavior you just listed What happens, or might happen, as a result of each behavior? Be specific. Don’t hide from the truth.

…more strategies from our authors 3. List some things that you can do immediately to alter your dysfunctional behavior, (remembering that your behavior comes from your desires) - your behavior is probably influenced by your situation… (Ibid)

 Change some things in your situation…e.g., Move? Change jobs? Get out of a bad relationship? Get help from a professional? Learn better coping strategies?

Strategies, cont’d… Write down a detailed plan for changing your dysfunctional behavior—the more details, the more useful your plan will be. (Ibid)

Take control of your desires

- Pythagoras

Daily Reflection Notes Print the following slide, one copy for each day of this week, (remember to use “print current slide” and use grayscale). Reflecting and making some notes on your thoughts and experiences of the day help to internalize this “challenge”, as you know.

DAILY REFLECTION NOTES Today I was successful in using the following ideas/strategies: The key insights that emerged for me today were: One problem in my thinking that I now realize is: I plan to continue working on this problem using the following strategy: