Mental Health

Why Tenacious Skepticism Doesn’t Make Us Wiser or Healthier and What to Do Instead

After mending my dogged skepticism with a healthy dose of faith and finding the sweet spot, I became more innovative, healthier, and happier.

Purpose of the Article

This article highlights the disadvantages of persistent skepticism in our personal and professional life. I provide practical ideas to become a less skeptical and more flexible person.

I offer a unique approach to finding the delicate balance between faith and doubt in the proper context and relevant circumstances to improve creativity, productivity, mental health, and quality of life.

This opinion piece is based on my reviews, observations, and experience in personal and professional settings. It is not prescriptive and does not provide specific health or professional advice.

Inspiration for the Post

I wrote this piece because dogged skepticism was harmful to me in my younger years and numerous people in my circles. Like myself, I witnessed people suffering from excessive and prolonged doubt.

During my leadership studies, those who recovered from the condition enjoyed their lives more. In addition, they became more creative and productive, as the research participants at the time reported.

After trial and error for years, I found effective ways to lower my skepticism to a healthy dose with accompanied faith. This transformation was invaluable for me. Thus, I want to share my tacit knowledge and approach in this short article.

What is skepticism, and when/how can it be a problem?

I don’t aim to make this piece too theoretical, but we need to understand the concept and the context in general and at a high level so that my points make sense. Thus, I’d like to define skepticism for our common understanding.

The dictionary definition of skepticism is “an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object.” Incredulity means doubt, disbelief, or mistrust.

As we can extrapolate from this definition, skepticism is a psychological and behavioral construct. I highlight this aspect as the concept of skepticism itself is paradoxical in nature. In other words, skeptics have no evidence to become skeptical.

We need to distinguish skepticism in real life and philosophy as it has a slightly different meaning in the latter. In philosophy, skepticism means that knowledge in a specific area is uncertain. Skeptical philosophers assert that certain knowledge is impossible.

Some skeptical philosophers depict a systematic doubt or suspended judgment towards knowledge constructs. For example, some believe consciousness cannot be explained through accumulated knowledge in any discipline. Some believe that it can only be experienced.

In my opinion, a healthy dose of skepticism might be helpful for various reasons. It only becomes a problem when it turns to persistent behavior showing disapproval for anything which does not make sense to the person.

From this standpoint, as none of us know everything in every discipline, it is impossible to make sense of everything even though those things are known to experts in that domain.

For example, to a layperson, molecular, atomic, or subatomic objects in our body and environment do not make much sense as they cannot see them. Likewise, some people cannot believe in invisible sound or light waves. Some people still doubt the shape of the globe and climate change.

This does not mean those objects or situations don’t exist. It is solid knowledge for professionals who deal with them daily. They use devices such as microscopes to see invisible things. Only after using a microscope can a skeptic believe in such objects.

Now imagine what if everyone was skeptical of invisible objects, never believed in their existence, and saw the effort to show them as futile. We wouldn’t be able to develop the molecular sciences that add value to our lives. So science grows with a delicate balance between faith and doubt.

Being skeptical in our relationships also has implications. It is impossible to provide proof of everything in daily life. Some belief is essential to analyze broadly and make decisions. If you stay skeptical about everything, it is impossible to make any progress. We might face analysis paralysis.

Therefore I said in the title of this story tenacious skepticism would not make us wiser. Some skeptics think they are smarter than believers and keep rejecting everything they don’t have hard evidence for.

There is nothing wrong with looking for evidence in a new concept or idea. However, rejecting them for not having evidence can be problematic. I explain this with examples in the next section.

Finding the sweet spot between faith and skepticism for creativity, productivity, and well-being.

As I experienced excessive skepticism in my younger years, I know that it can be detrimental to our creativity, productivity, relationships, and mental health. I also experienced faith in different doses.

Faith and skepticism look like two ends of the spectrum. In my opinion, too much faith and too much skepticism can be problematic depending on the context and conditions.

Both faith and skepticism at different amounts look necessary for our psychological health. For example, life can be unbearable without faith in anything.

On the other end of the spectrum, if we have no skepticism about some things, we might struggle to protect our sanity. For example, a person with no skepticism might suffer the consequences induced by scammers and con artists.

Studying science and technology at a young age made me skeptical, with little knowledge in these domains. In theory, persistent skepticism worked well for me when studying science, technology, and related philosophies. It boosted my ego, making believers feel bad.

However, when I started my professional life, skepticism started hurting me. After learning some specific phenomena were impossible to explain scientifically at a given time, I understood the importance of faith.

My definition of faith is believing something without scientific proof. Even though science cannot prove many things, we can gain faith experimentally. By using the power of experimental faith, I significantly gained personal and professional benefits.

Let’s look at these three concepts: consciousness, intuition, and karma. Modern science cannot explain these three concepts empirically. However, many scientists I know in my circles believe in these concepts, including myself.

I believe in consciousness, intuition, and karma because I have strong experience with these concepts. Being skeptical about them will equate to denying an essential part of me and will not serve a purpose. I experience these concepts through daily meditations.

This might surprise some readers, but only after embracing faith, I became an inventor of multiple patents. If I had stayed skeptical about those ideas, it wouldn’t be possible to manifest them as patentable designs.

When I got those ideas, there was no scientific proof. Let alone any evidence; no one (as far as I know during the independent patent search) had any idea of those concepts. They simply did not exist in the physical domain.

However, I needed a healthy dose of skepticism to go from A to B. The evaluators of the patents also required a little skepticism to verify the novelty and feasibility of ideas for real-life use.

So my point in this example is that both faith and skepticism are essential to make sense of the world around us. During the inception phase, a heavy dose of faith with little skepticism and at later stages of manifestation, an additional dose of skepticism can be valuable.

So my sweet spot for skepticism was to use it as a tool to weed the metaphorical garden. When I found this sweet spot, my creativity and productivity significantly increased.

In addition to creativity and productivity, having a healthy dose of faith and skepticism in the proper context and at the right times contributed to improving my relationships, health, and overall well-being.

Finding this sweet spot between faith and doubt and practicing it consistently, I broadened and deepened my knowledge. Thus, my creativity and productivity increased.

Having faith in loved ones and reliable people improved my relationships. However, staying skeptical of untrusted people helped me protect myself from scammers. Consequently, this sweet spot contributed to my health and well-being.

Beware of the science trap while rejecting everything.

I firmly believe that our greatness comes from understanding and accepting how little we know. This understanding can help us grow better and faster. Persistent skepticism can slow down our progress.

Based on my decades of experience, I believe that none of us has a clue about the countless secrets hidden in the universe yet. We all have perceptions coming from our creative domain. It is great. We can create them and add meaning based on our senses and consensus.

Science is valuable, but, in essence, it is not more than human perceptions. Contrary to the beliefs of some skeptics, science is not a tangible thing. It is a combination of imagined ideas and concepts later structured for common perceptions.

We need to be aware of the science trap when rejecting everything with no proof yet. Science is not a tangible entity. Technology and engineering turn accepted ideas by scientists into products.

So my point is if something cannot be explained in scientific terms right now, that does not mean it does not exist. Science constantly evolves with support from creativity, philosophy, technology, and engineering.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Even though I lowered my skepticism substantially as uncontrolled skepticism slowed down my progress, I still believe a healthy dose of skepticism can be valuable in the proper context.

However, I have concerns about excessive and persistent skepticism that can adversely impact our creativity, productivity, relationships, and mental health.

Humans evolved as they believed in specific things in the beginning, then through trial and error, they separated right from wrong based on their needs. If we had denied everything, we wouldn’t be able to reach this state in the modern world. Therefore, faith is essential to some extent.

I worked with some people who were on the extreme end of skepticism. For example, a colleague humorously said he was skeptical about the skepticism itself once. He never believed anything we said in work and social settings. He constantly objected, showing disagreement with a but statement.

Like me, this person and many others in my circles cured their excessive skepticism disorder by finding the sweet spot between faith and doubt.

There is no set formula suiting the needs of everyone. Therefore, we need to find the right dose of faith and doubt to suit our needs and circumstances. I only used my situation as an example to create awareness.

Unfortunately, some people make skepticism a lifestyle. Obsession with such behavior can be risky for our relationships and mental health. For example, skepticism might turn into cynicism and adversely affect our personal and work relationships.

Rather than a lifestyle, we can use skepticism as a valuable tool to protect ourselves from scammers or weed our ideas to mature them and gain tacit knowledge. I see skepticism as a tool that we might use when the times and places are suitable.

My optimism grew when I found my sweet spot between faith and doubt and used skepticism only as a tool. Some skeptics might not believe it, but some scientists have shown evidence that optimists might live longer than pessimists.

After finding my sweet spot between faith and doubt, believing the unbelievable has become a virtue for me. I believe that there are many things in the universe we cannot even dream of yet.

I don’t know about pessimists, but as I learned from my spiritual mentor Rumi, I live life “as if everything is rigged in my favor” and enjoy it immensely.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

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