They look so sweet and innocent, don't they? And fun! They definitely look like they might be fun to hang out with. But make no mistake, my friends, these little critters do not have your best interests in mind.
way...
And yet you know it never works out quite as advertised. Why do they sound so persuasive? Why do we WANT to listen to them, even against our better judgment?
For one thing, most people with addictive personalities are very experienced with the concept of rationalization. We know what we're doing isn't perhaps the best thing, and yet we figure out a million reasons why we can't stop doing that thing, whatever it is. Circumstances aren't quite right to stop, or another time would be better for some reason. We would make the change, if only [insert reason here]. We bridge the disconnect between what we know and how we feel with a ton of flimsy excuses, but it all boils down to this:
And so we rush to embrace any excuse we can come up with to justify what we're doing. We rationalize our decisions, and no rationalization is too shaky to embrace. If it even halfway makes sense, we're all over it. We're just waiting for that little devil on our shoulder---or misleadingly innocent-looking chorus of cuddly bears---to pipe up with a reason not to change. It's a hard pattern to break, to be honest. But we can all start by learning to ignore those little rationalizing voices and shut down our inner Bad Idea Bears before they start making too much sense.
Who's Your Little Buddy?
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