I believe one of the worst things humans do is to stop questioning what they do. Humans tend to repeat their words and these become their thoughts leading to their repeated actions. Repetition solidifies and becomes habit. Habits lead to saying this is what we always do.
When we fall into a habit, we stop questioning its merit regardless of the change that makes this habit invalid. Examples are so many in almost all layers of our lives.
In families, we find many inherited habits such as the wives do the homework.
When the wives get jobs, they earn less money than men who do the same job. The less qualified men get promotions to leadership roles, but few women do.
In business we find companies tending to do what they have done for a long time. Change necessitates that these companies must change, but they fail, leading to their bankruptcy. Staying in the comfort zone of doing, what we always do and not questioning the validity of what we do has led many businesses to decline.
In management, we keep hearing “just do what I say” or “I am the boss and do what I say”. Another example of doing what we do is “evaluation of employees on the basis of normal distribution and individuals regardless of the team performance”.
Social habits tend to remain as they are even though their validity is outdated. Long-held beliefs age and become outdated. However, we tend to stick to them by not questioning what we do always.
Generalizations such as most people believe in an idea and stick to their belief because these people held them without questioning them. When a thinker brings fresh thinking, social resistance may force him to give up and yield to social pressure.
There is an undeclared assumption that what worked yesterday works today and tomorrow. Wrong assumptions lead to wrongdoings. As much as these assumptions are sources of comfort they are, also the greatest threat we face with the rapidity of change that we all experience today.
Sinking in the sand of we have always done it this way —is sinking to failure and bankruptcy.
