Essaying Discernment

The evidence is in, and it is overwhelming and undeniable: we human beings can be terrible decision-makers. Regardless of what we think we do, we all make snap judgments about almost everything, and then we use reasoning to justify those judgments. When faced with the question of how we should act, we muddle around at best, and at worst we don’t muddle at all but just act or react. If we are going to grow in the art of discernment, the first step is to understand why we are so bad at it, especially in an accelerated technological society such as ours. When we slow our roll, we learn that discernment is hard mental and emotional work and that the imagination is the faculty that must take the lead.