Daniel M. Wegner’s article titled “How to Think, Say or Do Precisely the Worst Thing for Any Occasion” reveals interesting insights into actions that we see or do on a regular basis. Through his many experiments and examples he answers what a counterintentional error is, how factors such as attention affect our ability to suppress thoughts, whether errors apply to behaviors and emotions rather than just mental or cognitive thoughts, and addresses whether we as humans are good at suppressing our thoughts. Counterintentional error is the “imp of the perverse,” “counter will,” “law of reversed effort,” and the “whoops” that happen in life. It is when we consciously think about not doing something and end up doing it anyway. Why do we do this?
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We are told that we must strive for perfection, however, if we are constantly focusing on what we are doing wrong we are more likely to make mistakes that we know we should not. We must learn from our mistakes, but not live in our mistakes. A primary song entitled “Hum Your Favorite Hymn” represents this article wholeheartedly. Mosiah 4:30 says “watch your thoughts, words, and deeds.” There are times that we will try to suppress bad thought, however, like this article portrays sometimes those “unclean” thoughts may still creep in. In LDS Children’s Songbook the first verse of “Hum Your Favorite Hymn” reads “If on occasion you have found Your language is in question, Or ugly thoughts come to your minds then here’s a good suggestion. Just hum your favorite hymn, Sing out with vigor and vim, And you will find it clears your mind. Hum your favorite hymn.” As the article stated “research shows we are not good at multi-tasking.” So to suppress pornographic or other unclean thoughts an effective way to combat these things is to distract our brains. What better way to do this then by drawing our attention to Christ? He knows our difficulties and He will strengthen us against the
We are told that we must strive for perfection, however, if we are constantly focusing on what we are doing wrong we are more likely to make mistakes that we know we should not. We must learn from our mistakes, but not live in our mistakes. A primary song entitled “Hum Your Favorite Hymn” represents this article wholeheartedly. Mosiah 4:30 says “watch your thoughts, words, and deeds.” There are times that we will try to suppress bad thought, however, like this article portrays sometimes those “unclean” thoughts may still creep in. In LDS Children’s Songbook the first verse of “Hum Your Favorite Hymn” reads “If on occasion you have found Your language is in question, Or ugly thoughts come to your minds then here’s a good suggestion. Just hum your favorite hymn, Sing out with vigor and vim, And you will find it clears your mind. Hum your favorite hymn.” As the article stated “research shows we are not good at multi-tasking.” So to suppress pornographic or other unclean thoughts an effective way to combat these things is to distract our brains. What better way to do this then by drawing our attention to Christ? He knows our difficulties and He will strengthen us against the