Why do we always generalize?
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“Why does no one ever like me back?”
Maybe these statements seem familiar. Deny it all you want but your brain knows what they mean. This is called generalization- and I had this realization that I use generalization a lot; which made me think that it’s actually a common fashion in communication!
I’m sorry, let me get to the point. I got a bit carried away there. In school, I generally tend to like subjects like Science and Math, rather than History or Humanities. This was because they had a pattern- a law.
In Math or Science, one could predict what would happen or what could happen because they had laws. My brain, liked these laws because it likes finding patterns. It was easy for me to understand when there is a logic, reason or a common occurrence in a certain phenomenon.
I always assumed that, in fact, let me totally eradicate the word ‘always’ and say that until now I assumed, that life had a similar pattern. A law, with which life works. For eg, guys never like me back; I always mess things up; I never finish my food and so on.
We all do this at some point. When someone says ‘I hate horror films’, we immediately answer with a ‘me too’, when our mind prompts us with an ‘except for Annabelle. And Conjuring. Apart from It, I don’t like other horror films’. Though this might just be to sustain the conversation, we end up generalizing without realizing. (Like I am rhyming without realizing)
I don’t really like sweet things, except chocolate, and ice-cream. Well then, you do like sweet things! Point is, we often see these things in this sort of mundane way.
This week was very boring. Was it really? Just because six out of twelve hours were boring doesn’t mean the entire day was bad!
Generalization makes us seem smart. That is what I think. Let me actually say that there are several reasons for generalization, so that I don’t end up generalizing, one of them is it creates philosophy. It makes us seem smart. Why? Well because instead of just saying you don’t like movie A,B,C of a certain genre, saying you hate the entire genre makes your personality seem strong.
In a similar way, negativity also increases by generalization. Just because one day was bad, you assume the next day is going to be bad. Because three blonde girls rejected you until now, you assume blonde’s are just not your type.
The truth is, laws work for Science and Math, but life is more Humanities. Like I said, I hated Humanities and History because it had no pattern. Each case different, each date different, each name different. Though you could say there was a certain pattern like ‘person gets mad, more people get mad, there’s war’ but that won’t fetch you any marks.
In the same way, life is different at each turn. Just because you didn’t enjoy what happened until now, doesn’t mean it will continue the same way. You cannot predict it. It is different at each turn. Each day is different, each moment is different. Don’t look at it in a mundane way and generalize it. Respect the individuality and live your life!
