You only see what your eyes want to see

This is one of my absolute favorite Madonna tracks. I’ve quoted it more times than I care to admit, usually while watching people aggressively try to re-confirm their own prior beliefs or hypotheses.

But as it turns out, there is a legitimate, clinical term for this behavior. As human beings, we are hardwired to be selective, and cherry-pickers of information. We crave the stuff that validates our preconceived notions and neatly discard the rest.

Welcome to the world of Confirmation Bias.

According to the folks at Verywell Mind, it’s a cognitive bias defined as a systematic error in thinking that occurs when people process and interpret the world around them. It completely hijacks our judgments and decisions.

We humans are comfort-seeking creatures. We crave familiarity, validation, and a tribe to belong to. Honestly, evaluating every single piece of information objectively is just too damn taxing. Blame our survival-based ancestry our brains are built to make quick, "fix it for now" decisions. Or maybe, in an era of absolute information overload, we’re just too tired to do the research, so we hit the default button: our own memory and experience.

I really began to understand the depth of this when I started counseling. I knew something was off in my life, but dare I point the finger at myself? Please.

During one session, my counselor—knowing my deep, bordering-on-obsessive love for quotes—hit me with a Lewis Carroll classic: “We are what we believe we are.” Then, she added her own spin: "But it seems that the world is also what we believe it to be."

She helped me see how much we struggle to accept anything that disrupts our personal status quo. Take my house, for example. I have a very specific, non-negotiable view of where things belong. Every time something is out of its designated place, it annoys me to no end. Is it textbook confirmation bias? Not exactly. But why the rage? Simply because it dares to defy my confirmed view of reality. Even if someone gives me a completely logical explanation for why an item is there, I will still find a way to prove my theory right.

We do this because we are desperate for consistency. In a world full of constant flux, chaos, and moving parts, we crave stability. So, we form an opinion, draw a line in the sand, and fight to stay there. It is both a gift and a curse.

Let’s be real: constantly weighing the pros and cons of every single thing we do is a massive pain. Our brains are already juggling enough. So, we accept what appeals to us and ghost the contradictions.

But that tunnel vision stops us from seeing the world in all its chaotic glory. We miss the reasoning, the data, and the chance to make actual, informed decisions. I’m not saying your experiential or notional beliefs are always wrong. But next time someone says something that doesn't fit your narrative, instead of immediately shutting down, take a step back and ask yourself:

• Did I completely disregard them because it was inconvenient?
• Did I only tune into the parts that matched my own track list?
• What was my actual reaction to hearing something I didn't like?
• What is the actual rationale behind their point of view?

Our biases box us into a corner and shrink our horizon. If we can step out of our little cocoons, we’ll realize the world has a lot more to offer than just our echo chambers. Yes, it takes work to re-think, analyze, and process. It’s a mental workout. But isn't that a much better place to live?

There isn't just one right way to live this life and being so acute in our thinking. Let’s widen the horizon, learn to adapt, actually listen, and stop jumping to conclusions. As the saying goes: "Life is simple, we complicate it."

I am very much a work in progress on this front. But making these subtle shifts in my behavior has brought a lot more peace. I am finally open to looking at both sides of the coin rather than just blindly settling for heads.