I guess I’ve taken my upbringing for granted. My parents never allowed me to compare myself to my classmates, my grades were my grades, it didn’t matter what the rest of the class got on the latest test. They pushed me constantly, challenged me to always challenge myself and encouraged me to learn if for no other reason than the sake of learning. They also taught me to never be afraid to voice an unpopular idea or thought.

In my classes growing up, in high school and college, much of the curriculum was about learning how to think. The majority of English and Philosophy classes was always discussion , debate and the exchange of ideas about the latest book we had read. I and my classmates were encouraged to disagree, to not be afraid to give our opinion – yet to always be ready to back up our opinions. It was that constant discourse that fostered learning, recognition of different perspectives and discovery of new ideas.

I never viewed any of the discourse in terms of who was more intelligent, or who was better or worse, or who was right and wrong. I simply looked at it as different views: you convey and back up yours’, I will convey and back up mine…in the process we will probably stumble upon one that neither of us thought about on our own. We were constantly warned about echo chambers in school, and about how detrimental they were to intellectual growth.

I think I just took it all for granted until much later in life, fairly recently actually, when I found myself in a place where egos were more important than the potential validity of dissenting ideas, and the protection of the feelings of those espousing unrealistic and unjustified ideas were more important than solutions to very real problems that were causing very real detrimental commotion. It just never occurred to me that places could sustain themselves if the predominant influence was the bally-hoeing of people who could care less about feasible solutions and answers, and cared only whether or not they were told they were right.

It was a wake-up call to me, and truly made me appreciate my parents and all my teachers who had always encouraged me to keep learning and challenging my own ideas. And also to always remember that for every good idea, you have to get through 10 bad ones first. Bad ideas do not make someone stupid, they are simply necessary steps towards the really good ideas.

Ironically enough, for the first time in my life, while I was stuck in that enclave where feelings trumped rational thought, I was constantly called arrogant. I don’t know, maybe I was, not because I considered myself more intelligent, but because I was sick of trying to find correct solutions with people’s feelings. I learned through that experience that I need to be around people who care less about being right or wrong, and more about finding the RIGHT ANSWERS. Because you don’t find complex solutions or answers by sitting around and singing kum-bi-yah, you find them by being around people who challenge each other. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll find yourself surrounded by passionate people who get heated, who openly attack your ideas and who have the thick skin and self-confidence to take it in return.

Again, the more energy you spend on worrying about and tip-toeing around people’s feelings, the less energy you have towards actually figuring out the solutions.

I will never again take the lessons my parents and teachers taught me for granted.

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Groupthink is a social-psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people in which the desire for harmony in decision making overrides impartial and rational consideration of alternative decisions. It destroys independent thinking and creativity. 

I've found the prevalence of groupthink to be a little overwhelming since I first learned about it in high school. I've always believed it's because people want to belong, and do not want to be wrong, so they shut down their own independent critical thinking and simply float along with the group. It can be dangerous, for example, the Salem Witch Trials. 

According to Irving Janis, the research psychologist who performed the bulk of research on the topic in the 70s, there are three conditions that foster groupthink (not all are usually present):

1. High group cohesiveness - which can be fostered by external threats to the group, real or fabricated
2. Structural Faults
   • Insulation of the Group
   • Lack of Impartial Leadership (ring leaders with agendas)
   • Lack of norms requiring methodological processes (example: unfounded allegations and accusations, without the accused ever being heard)
   • Homogeneity of members' social backgrounds and ideology (for example, a group all having a victim mentality)
3. Situational Context
   • Highly stressful external threats (again, real or fabricated)
   • Recent failures
   • Excessive difficulties on the decision-making task
   • Moral dilemmas (like stabbing someone in the back who has defended you for quite a long time.)

Even more interesting, here are the 8 symptoms Janis outlined:

1. Overestimation of the Group
   • Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism
   • Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group
2. Closed-Mindedness
   • Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions
   • Stereotyping those opposed to the group as evil, biased, crazy, stupid
3. Pressure Towards Uniformity
   • Self-censorship of ideas deviating from group consensus
   • Illusions of unanimity amidst group members
   • Direct pressure applied on any member who questions the group, often they are labeled as disloyal
   • Mind guards - self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information

The "bandwagon effect" is a common form of groupthink in which the more people who come to believe something, the more likely individuals are to adopt those beliefs despite contradictory underlying evidence. The tendency to follow others can occur either because of a desire to conform, or because individuals derive information from others. 

What I've found is that adept manipulators can piggyback off of groupthink to insulate themselves and garner support for their nefarious actions. They do this through deception and tricking weaker individuals into believing that they can relate to them, fabricating external threats which forms a bond and need for togetherness, and then completely shutting them off from dissenting evidence or attacking any dissenting evidence as deception. The really good ones can convince individuals in the group that they are thinking on their own, when in reality the manipulator is depriving the members of impartial evidence, thereby disallowing the members from being able to make decisions based on a complete collection of facts and evidence.

I detest groupthink, mostly because I believe learning and decision making should be based upon different perceptions and views challenging one another and finding the faults and merits in one another. In my old office, my old team gave me a sign that said "Google It." Why? Because whenever they came to me for answers, I wanted them to go find them themselves. I wanted them first to learn how to be resourceful enough to find their own answers. But second, I didn't want them to take my perceptions, I wanted them to form their own. 

I always encouraged dissent, though I would challenge people's ideas and opinions, because again...we all think differently, we all have different opinions...it's within that diversity that we can find the best solutions...not within any conformity. But if we're afraid to challenge one another's ideas, we're creeping ever closer to that sought out harmony that leads to groupthink. 

Groupthink is much more prevalent in business and in life than people realize. There are also more people out there who prey on groupthink than you'd think. Which is why one of the best things you can ever teach someone to believe in is the value of their own individual and independent thoughts. And to not be afraid to have them challenged in order to refine and constantly evolve them. 

Groupthink is the assassination of our individual ideas, creativity and thoughts. Which is why it is such a dangerous evil.

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Projection: a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.

Projection, a theory originally developed by Freud, is one of the primitive self-defense mechanisms whereby anxiety is reduced by avoiding personal conscious fault for unwanted impulses by projecting said impulses onto external persons or objects. 

Want a good example? Here:

Let's say there's someone who always talks about and accuses everyone else of "deception." They write about it on their blog, accuse people of it, see the whole world as constantly trying to deceive them. But in reality, (which means outside their projection-based perception) this is how they actually act:

1. They send emails in the name of other innocent bystanders that contain completely fabricated allegations to assault someone they think has deceived them. In other words, they commit deception.
2. They cheat on their boyfriend habitually, carry on affairs behind their boyfriend's back, and then lie that the person they were cheating with deceived them - accepting zero responsibility for their own infidelity. 
3. They deceive a 23 year old with erroneous tales about how someone is trying to take hits out on them, convincing the 23 year old that they, and they alone, are their savior and true friend, and that everyone else is trying to deceive them. (this type of deception is also brainwashing, something gangs and cults employ)
4. When confronted with their lies, they spin, try to silence the other side and further deceive by manipulating and changing evidence (like emails), again, claiming that the truth is actually a deception...no matter how blatantly they get caught. 
5. They have no qualms about committing perjury.
6. They destroy others names to avoid the consequences of their own actions, and again, blame the victims of their actions as deceivers. 
7. They create strawman monsters out of people who are not their to defend themselves, and then tell those around them that the strawman monster is out to get them too...again manipulating deception to elicit a type of brainwashed loyalty to them. 
8. They isolate their followers from alternative opinions and perceptions, labeling opposing views as deception. 

But that same someone who has acted in the way above, the first thing they accuse everyone else of is deception. That's called projection, and because they themselves rely on deception to navigate their way through life, they see everyone else as employing deception. According to Freud the reasoning would be to alleviate the anxiety of having to own their own actions, and instead believing everyone else is actually the deceivers. Protection of the ego. 

Being a primitive self-defense mechanism, it is commonly connected with primitive personality organizations, such as:

• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Psychopathy

I'm glad I took the psychology classes I did when in high school and college, because it's allowed me to identify some of the basics, like projection, in people. Recently though, I completely failed to identify it quickly enough, and because of that, I failed to protect someone who I care very deeply about. I still have not forgiven myself for that. 

If someone constantly accuses everyone else of the same thing, beware. Again, what's the common denominator? You're getting a glimpse into how that person sees the world, and perhaps how they are projecting their own faults on to others.

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“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” - Richard Bach

One of the hardest lessons for me in life has been that you can't help people who won't help themselves. 

I once knew someone who was one of the most gifted and remarkable people I'd ever met. At their core, they were intelligent, witty, hard-working and had a genuinely good heart. When I met them they were frazzled though...they felt taken for granted, not listened to and misunderstood. They believed they had an unfair reputation and nothing could change that. Some of the reputation was valid, and some was not - I compared what other people had told me about them to what I saw myself, and it didn't match up. 

See, for me, once I'd seen the hint of what hid behind her outward persona, I was fascinated and began to take the time to truly get to know her. She seemed to always struggle and always be in conflict, and like I told her a million times, the truth is you have to find the common denominator. As I got to know her better, despite the absolutely special person I saw inside of her, I realized she relied on external validation for her sense of self. Which is where the conflict came from. She took criticism as a judgment of her character, regardless of the source, and relied on praise too much instead of believing in herself. So when people disagreed with her she'd lash out at them in emotional temper tantrums. Well, what happens when you lash out at people for simply disagreeing with you? You end up in conflict. It's simple arithmetic. 

Responsibility was one of her biggest weaknesses. Every conflict was someone else's fault, every mistake she made was because of someone else, every time she couldn't get her work done it was due to someone else. If she felt guilty, it was someone else's fault for making her feel guilty...even though no one, no matter how hard they try, can ever make us feel something we don't want to. Though she wanted to be praised as independent, in reality, she donned the persona of a victim and took no responsibility for any of her actions. 

And here's where I got trapped by her. For me, I saw an incredibly gifted and talented individual who didn't see it in themselves. I so wanted to help her see it in herself. I cared deeply about her, and I would never want to change her, but I did want to change the way she saw herself...I wanted to help her believe in herself. I tried to show her how unique and gifted she was, but then also tell her when she was wrong so she could face it and change it instead of constantly being embroiled in conflict...and that got lost in translation. When I criticized her actions, she thought I was telling her she was wrong as a person. I didn't realize that until far too late...

It was an incredibly frustrating exercise, I think I believed in her more than she believed in herself, and I should have recognized that earlier and freed myself from her cycles. But, like I said, I cared deeply about her and just wanted to help her see it in herself. 

In the end, she found it more convenient to fall into old patterns and surround herself with people who simply offered external validation because they just didn't want to deal with her and would just placate her. And she found it even more convenient to turn me into the ultimate scapegoat, and to blame me for everything wrong in her life. Funny how that works. I spent two years of my life constantly defending her, standing up for her, perhaps coddling her too much, trying to get her to see how gifted she is...and accepting constant abuse from her because I wouldn't simply placate her and allow her to blame everyone else for her own actions. But, it was my decision. The tragedy, at least from my perspective, is that she's going to keep on struggling because she doesn't take responsibility for affecting her own outcomes. And it sucks, because she is so gifted and deserves so much more. 

But you can't help people who won't help themselves. And sometimes, no matter how hard you try, and how much attention, time and effort you give to them...in the end, they just end up hurting you. Because some people are so adamant about not helping themselves, that they just end up hurting everyone in their life who care about them enough to try and get them to expect more from themselves. While they praise the ones who simply placate them because they don't. 

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"Well didn't you say that it's always the people who you open up to the most that abandon you? You ever wonder why?" - thrown at me by someone I trusted more than anyone. She gloated about how she said it to hurt me. And she did.

I trusted her deeply. I care about her deeply. Some of the abusive things she said to me, some of the vicious things she said about me, some of the heartless actions she took against me...the accumulation of them began to make me feel worthless. They began to make me feel like a horrible human being. How could someone who I was so close to, who told me how much they cared about me, treat me like a piece of trash to be discarded? It hurt, and for someone who was so close to me to have such little regard for my feelings - the hypothesis exists that I must be meaningless. Sadly, I didn't ask what was going on with her, I only asked if I was truly that horrible. I began to believe it. 

In hindsight, she was really hurt too. But that logic didn't mitigate the damage her words have done to me. We're both hurt. And what's really sad about this is that while I burden the guilt for her hurt, she probably revels in mine. Which is why I struggled over writing about my pain. In the end I decided if she'd worked that hard to hurt me, who am I to deny her that victory? And more importantly, this is also why I wrote about my hurt:

This weekend I ran into an old friend at the bar. My friend had been reading my blog and told me they were still reading and how much they enjoyed it. They told me, "You write things that everyone else is thinking, but never say." 

That's the silver lining. If through the expression of my own pain and hurt, others can read this and relate to it, and recognize that those thoughts they don't say aren't just in their head...then through my words I can show them they're not alone. I believe one of the most noble things we can do in this life is take our own pain and utilize it to help others. Even if it's just as simple as somehow relating to them so they don't feel alone.

This weekend I began to again realize I'm not just a piece of trash to be discarded. It's hard when you've let someone so close into yourself, someone you trust so much, and they use what you've confided in them to manipulate you into thinking you're worthless. But who am I really? Well, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. A lot. But I've given a lot of myself and my heart to people in order to try to help them, and because of that, my heart's been used and run over countless times. 

"She" knows that. After all, it was her who said to me: I admire the courage you have to always lead with your heart. Of course she knows who I really am, which is precisely why she demonizes me...it's the only way she can reconcile the way she treated me. Again, you just don't understand how close she was to me or how much I trusted her...which is why the real pivotal battle I've fought for five months has been internal, in not allowing myself to believe I am who she's trying to demonize me as. 

It also sucks, because to be honest, I made a lot of mistakes too, and I don't understand why this has to be black and white. Why can't we just admit we cared a lot about each other and both hurt each other? I guess that would be making it right, and she's not concerned with making anything right, only in being right. 

But you know what? If she never needs help or just someone to listen to her, I would never turn my back on her if she asked. No matter what, she is someone I will care about the rest of my life. And nothing will ever change that, which is precisely why she will always have my ear should she seek it. 

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