I have a sign on my office wall hung where I can see it easily from my desk. I’ve had that sign for years. It has travelled with me to all my professional stops, always front and center, always within sight. It reads, “Don’t believe everything you think.” It is that gentle reminder that I am not the smartest guy in the room – even when I am alone. That has served me quite well for so many years, even now when my only real brainwork might be deciding what color towels to put out in the bathroom this week. Most often I do not go with my first thought, just in case it might be wrong. Because um, most often, well, ah, it is.

I could stop right here. But you know I won’t. (You’ve probably gotten used to that about me.) So I won’t. I can’t. At least I don’t think so. Hmmm.

I would just love to multiply my little wall sign and send it to a few hundred dozen people who really really really need to stop believing what they think. Stop and, if you’ll forgive the expression, think about this. In the last year we have heard people say some incredibly stupid things with seeming sincerity. Or perhaps seamy sincerity.  Of course celebrities specialize in stupid, as do politicians. Making up their own “alternate facts” to fit a circumstance is what noticeably separates that group from “normal” people. The fact that these facts are not the facts doesn’t stop these folks from holding onto them as facts. Nor does just repeating a fallacy over and over turn it into a fact. So Rep. Greene, the gun rights lobby was not behind the Las Vegas shooting and lasers from outer space did not start the California wildfires. Mr. Barkley you undoubtedly pay a lot in taxes but as they say, money can’t buy happiness, let alone a CoViD vaccine. Major League Baseball Player Association (aka “union”) chief Tony Clark, that the average baseball player made “only” $1.59 million would be plenty “incentive to compete” for the several hundred million Americans who don’t get paid to play a child’s game for a living not to mention the several hundred thousand who are getting paid to even do work right now. And gee golly willikers Mr. Former Chief Executive, where do I begin?

What has me more concerned now is that the normally normal people are starting to act like celebrities, apparently deciding their version of truth and right is true and correct even when founded in falsehood and irrational thinking. Notwithstanding the loonies who claim they had no intention of rioting even though their Facebook posts say “On my way to the second revolution” and they are seen thrusting a battering ram into the door of the Capitol, there are far more normal people now acting as if their own wants are the only required justifications for their action.

I could run through a bazillion examples taken from the comments sections of the posted news articles reporting the activities of the celebrities and notorious lesser knowns. It would only serve to give me a headache and heartburn because those abnormal normal people certainly don’t read my posts and if they do I’m not so influential that I can change anybody’s thinking. In truth I really don’t want to change anybody’s thinking. Your thoughts are part of what makes you you. Your ability to temper your thoughts, to ponder, consider, and adjust are part of what makes you greater than just you.

No, I don’t want anybody to stop thinking, I’d just like people to stop and think again before acting on that first thought because, well really, you can’t believe everything you think.