I heard this brain teaser the other day and it goes like this: “If you were running a race and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?” The answer should be a simple one, but then again you may chose the incorrect one.

Sometimes a simple question like this is not answered by our intellect, but by our intuition. The dictionary defines intuition as a thing a person knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning. How many times have we stated without hesitation, “That doesn’t look right to me,” or “I think they are doing that the wrong way,” or “I’m sure this is the way we should go.”

It comes from making a momentary decision based what we feel inside, not what we understand after examining all the facts or looking at all the information properly. We can compare it to seeing a commercial on TV or an ad in a flyer with the words, “Only $19.95!” without reading the fine print below that adds: “per month for 12 months with added monthly interest of 21%.” So it’s only after the item arrives along with the payment coupon book that we realize how foolish we were to go with our intuition. On the other hands, those who’ve learned this hard lesson, are not fooled as easily and look for the fine print to know the truth.

The same is true when we are offered temptations in life to try something we are not familiar with or to do things we’ve been taught are wrong because the bargain price that is often attached reads like this: “A little won’t hurt you,” or “Everyone it doing it, so it can’t be that wrong,” or “No one else will know that you did it, so doing it won’t hurt anyone.”

I like what St. Augustine of Hippo, a highly esteemed early father of the church, had to say about it. He stated: “Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.” So the next time you are confronted with decisions that involve right or wrong, or good or bad, don’t go with your intuition unless it is based and founded on what you know to be the truth.

By the way, if in a race you pass the person in second place, it does not mean you are now in first place, it only means you have replaced the person who was in second place. – Dr. Robert R Seyda