Blink

I didn’t read this book in one shot, but many different segments during the course of a couple of months – A book has to be at least interesting to keep me going like this.

I like the many stories in this book. They always offer me some insights, which not necessarily agree with the author’s points. It’s funny to see how the author himself contradict himself in the book – but understandably so, because we live in such a paradoxical world.

Paradoxical especially when the unconscious mind is involved. Kudos to Malcolm to make a bestseller out of the subject of the unconscious mind, so the word does not only belong to the psychotherapists’ arena.

Are we going to trust our unconscious mind? The book gives many examples to do so, and many examples not to. It may not be because Malcolm Gladwell likes to contradict himself, but that there are layers of our unconscious mind. Some layers are innate, those we call “instinct”. They are unknown to us until the snap judgment is made, in another word, we “figure it out before we realize we have figured it out”. In those cases, it’s a good idea to listen to the barameter of the body. But some unconscious layers are programed, like how to drive, like how we have unconscious prejudice towards a certain group of people.

Another big insight I’ve got out of this book’s stories is that those who have “made it” may not necessarily know how they made it, therefore they may not make good teachers. There is a fact that they’ve made it, and there is their own understanding of how they made it. There may be a huge gap between the two. So shall we trust what they teach and follow, or shall we learn from what they have done and follow it, which is to trust our own inner knowing? My answer would be obvious, as I’m a hypnotherapist and my business tagline is “Accessing Wisdom Within”.

Another very useful question that you have to ask while reading this book is: Is it true that the more we know, the better we think?

Or sometimes the best for us to do is to blink?

This book review can also be found on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/review/RZ5KEVQLS2Z9C