Wow. Your appraisal is bleak and, fortunately, disconnected from reality. Cognitive dissonance, indeed!
Think about any life goal that requires significant work, such as "I'd like to be a superstar engineer" or "I've got no savings, but I want to save up and buy a house" or "I'd like to become a black-belt martial artist" or "I'd like to publish a successful novel."
How long does it take to achieve something like that?
There are a lot of goals in life that take five, ten, or even more years to achieve.
Now here's the thing...
If you're doing this life thing correctly, you will gain a significant amount of wisdom and perspective in any five- or ten-year span.
And with that wisdom and perspective comes the realization that some of your old goals weren't worth achieving. Or perhaps you will simply find other goals you like better. Or a different path to the same goal. That's not cognitive dissonance. That's learning and growing.
> That's not cognitive dissonance. That's learning and growing.
This is committing the straw-man fallacy. The poster that this is responding to did not elaborate on what cognitive-dissonance they are referring to.
In this case "learning and growing" is an optimistic, ego-stroking spin on "admitting defeat". I believe that AndrewKemendo has chosen his words carefully because being able to lose and fail graciously is more virtuous than trying to preserve the ego and pretend that it was a win.
But "lose" and "fail," as well as "win," are subjective. What counted as "losing" when you started may become "winning" by the time 5 years have passed, due to the change in perspective.
As a kid I wanted to make video games and (like many) this lead me to pursue software development as a career.
By the time I made it through college in the 90s I'd learned more and more about the games industry and learned that it's generally not a very happy place to work. Certainly not a place for me. So I chose a different path.
With several decades of following the game industry under my belt I feel I can very, very conclusively decide that this was the right call for me. Look at all the articles about game devs working insane crunch time and then being laid off as soon as the game ships, etc. I'm sure some enjoy it but it's very close to my idea of hell.
Simply avoiding that fate is something I count as a minor victory, and I've gone on to do other things.
It's madness for the parent poster to dismiss this sort of thing as either "failure" or "cognitive dissonance." I simply decided my original goal was not worth pursuing.
You set a goal (make video games) then gave up on it (didn't make video games), thus failing that goal. It isn't madness, nor is it rocket surgery. It's pure semantics.
I guess you have chosen a path that is not mentioned, "give up and try something new, but then pretend that isn't what you did"? "I don't call it giving up... I call it learning."
If you walked into your kitchen with the goal of making a sandwich and decided you wanted some oatmeal instead, would you call that a "failure?" Did you experience a "defeat?"
Most wouldn't say that you "failed" at making a sandwich unless you truly attempted to assemble a sandwich and were unable to do so.
Most would not consider me to have "failed" to become a game developer unless I'd made a true attempt at doing so: applying for jobs and failing to obtain one, or perhaps obtaining jobs and failing at those. Just as very few would consider me to have failed at becoming an astronaut or a professional hockey player, two other things I wanted to be as a child.
Strict definitions of "failure" aside, though, what I found really bizarre and bleak was the parent poster's claim that enjoying one's newly chosen goal+outcome to require an act of willful cognitive dissonance.
My post's not straw man. I responded to precisely what the parent poster said. They were very specific about the cognitive dissonance they perceived.
If we're pointing out actual logical fallacies...
to lose and fail graciously is more virtuous than
trying to preserve the ego and pretend that it was a win
In a universe where those are the only two possibilities? Sure.
You and OP are presenting a false dichotomy. Parent poster claimed that unachieved goals can have only two outcomes: (1) cognitive dissonance where the subject "pretends" to be satisfied with the outcome (2) the subject admits failure.
It's absolutely bizarre to deny that a person could, for example, actually shift their goals over a period of time, and conclude that they are engaging in cognitive dissonance if they decided on a different path.
I think the point they were driving at was not that nobody can change their goals. It is just inconceivable to them that that is not failure. To set a different goal, you must first fail at the last one (if you did not achieve it).
That is of course a way to look at your life that is perfectly okay, but it certainly wouldn't be my preference.
What an unfortunate way for them to view life. It's a bit heartbreaking to think about people viewing life in those terms. If I walk into the store intending to buy a shirt and decide I'd rather buy some pants instead, it would be very odd to consider that "a failure" to buy a shirt.
And even odder for somebody to accuse me of "cognitive dissonance" to be happy with my pants instead of admitting "defeat."
Failure is such a normal thing that I cannot see how it would be heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking to think that some see all failure as a dark thing that must be avoided. Holding failure in low esteem is a path of fear and egomania.
It sure is possible to rebrand every failure we make as success in some thing else. "I failed to win the tennis match, but I succeeded in hitting the ball into the net!".
There is a reason "fail fast" is a mantra: it's through looking at our errors we have chances to do better.
There is a reason "fail fast" is a mantra: it's through looking
at our errors we have chances to do better.
I'd agree, though that's not what this discussion was originally about.
It sure is possible to rebrand every failure we make as
success in some thing else. "I failed to win the tennis
match, but I succeeded in hitting the ball into the net!".
I agree, though nobody (at least not in this discussion) is endorsing that sort of cognitive gymnastics. There are no reasonable upsides to hitting the ball into the net, and it is not merely a "different" way of succeeding at the game others call tennis.
Let's go back to the original parent poster, untog's, claim.
When I'm at work, I do the best I can do. Then I get
out of the door at a good time, go home to my family
and have a blast with them. I'm happy, though my 21
year old self might recoil in horror to see it.
To which AndrewKemendo replied,
What I've seen happen is that people find
cognitive-dissonance coping strategies like you describe
Working reasonable hours and enjoying one's family is certainly not the life equivalent of hitting the tennis ball into the net, and it's awfully bleak to think that somebody's engaging in cognitive dissonance because their goals changed and they found happiness in a different way than they originally intended to.
To be clearer "Cognitive Dissonance" is the feeling, it's not an activity that someone engages in. So the OP has the feeling of cognitive dissonance between their "21 year old self" and where they are today.
My statement was meant to say that a common way people cope with this, in my experience, is to convince themselves to satisfice [1] instead of continuing to pursue their original goal.
It could be claimed that for certain things, this could be considered "growing up" or "maturing", which in many cases might be true. The child who gives up their dream to be a superhero is truly maturing because superhero was never really an option.
However falling into a stable local minima because you didn't become the CEO of a F500 company or become a championship tennis player etc...and convincing yourself that being a regional VP or a high school tennis coach is just as good because [reasons] seems to be how people cope with this dissonance.
To be clearer "Cognitive Dissonance" is the feeling,
it's not an activity that someone engages in.
That's correct. Cognitive dissonance is a result of conscious actions (the act of holding two mutually exclusive beliefs) and not the actions themselves. My posts would have been clearer if I'd correctly used the term.
However falling into a stable local minima because you didn't
become the CEO of a F500 company or become a championship tennis
player etc...and convincing yourself that being a regional VP
or a high school tennis coach is just as good because [reasons]
seems to be how people cope with this dissonance.
I think this is a very dark worldview.
Finding happiness in a "stable local minima" does not require a delusional belief that this situation is equivalent to some other, grander achievement. I'm sure it happens, but frankly I've never known anybody to really hold that particular delusion.
I doubt it was anybody's grand ambition to be a high school tennis coach, but it's actually a pretty cool job if you like that kind of thing, and it's awfully dark to think that all ~25,000 high school tennis coaches in America engage in conscious acts of delusional thinking in order to fool themselves into making it through their day. I know a few, and they just... enjoy tennis, teaching, and children? Plus tennis isn't the only thing in their lives?
I also know folks who've briefly played pro sports, and while they didn't achieve all they hoped, they're proud of what they did accomplish. No self-deception required.
Things I have seen a lot of, though not from athletes or coaches:
- Folks who get somewhat close to some goal and decide it's not for them once they have a more realistic picture of the day-to-day reality of that goal. Example: a rising executive who realizes that CEO life for company XYZ requires being on the road 300 days a year and not being around for her kids while they grow up.
- Folks who are delusional about the reasons why they didn't achieve some goal
Ultimately, people choose goals like "become a CEO of a F500 company" or "become a championship tennis player" because they imagine those things will make them happy. That is the true goal. And many times, people simply find different ways to be happy. No cognitive dissonance required.
More to the point, it's absolutely normal for people to shift their perspective, it's called growing as a person, part of said growth is learning more about yourself, and getting better at life in general.
I know it sounds dismissive, but I get the strong impression these other posters are young.
Think about any life goal that requires significant work, such as "I'd like to be a superstar engineer" or "I've got no savings, but I want to save up and buy a house" or "I'd like to become a black-belt martial artist" or "I'd like to publish a successful novel."
How long does it take to achieve something like that?
There are a lot of goals in life that take five, ten, or even more years to achieve.
Now here's the thing...
If you're doing this life thing correctly, you will gain a significant amount of wisdom and perspective in any five- or ten-year span.
And with that wisdom and perspective comes the realization that some of your old goals weren't worth achieving. Or perhaps you will simply find other goals you like better. Or a different path to the same goal. That's not cognitive dissonance. That's learning and growing.