Hanlon's Razor

It’s easy to get caught in a cycle of rumination when events don’t go our way.

In Ethan Kross’s book Chatter he notes that we internally talk to ourselves at a rate equivalent to speaking 4,000 words per minute out loud. 

For context, the American presidents’ State of the Union address typically contains 6,000 words and lasts over an hour. 

Our brains process nearly the same volume of speech in a mere sixty seconds.

This is why we tend to take things personally and assume the worst when things don’t work out the way we want. 

For example, imagine you messaged a client (or even a date), and they never called you back. 

In your mind, you probably are thinking that they’re not interested in you anymore and wondering what you did wrong.

It may be more likely the explanation is something trivial e.g. they were just busy or missed the message. 

This is where Hanlon’s razor becomes all important. 

The definition of Hanlon’s razor is “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

We can take things personally which are entirely the prerogative of others and far beyond our control, or we can choose to put things into context.

This mental model may come in handy the next time you have to deal with a bank, a phone queue and perhaps even your partner. 

As Rainer Maria Rilke said “Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen. Otherwise it will be too easy for you to look with blame”.