Prepare for liftoff...

What many people call “thinking” is really recycling the opinions of others.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that the majority of you did not go to the Wikipedia page or anywhere else to research critical thinking as I had suggested.  You are currently a failure haha.  You simply accepted what I had written about critical thinking without checking even one additional source.  Its okay, I expected as much.  I suppose I will just copy and paste some of the more important stuff I had hoped you would stumble across.  Read ittttttttttt.  I’m almost done preaching about thinking I promise, bear with me here.

• Critical thinking is the process of thinking that questions assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false; sometimes true, or partly true.
•  Critical thinking has been described as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.” It has also been described as "thinking about thinking." It has been described in more detail as "the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action". Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fairness. 
• Critical thinking is about being both willing and able to evaluate one's thinking. (willingness to criticize oneself)
• Critical thinking’s focus is in learning and developing the habitual intention to be truth-seeking, open-minded, systematic, analytical, inquisitive, confident in reasoning, and prudent in making judgments. Those who are ambivalent on one or more of these aspects of the disposition toward critical thinking or who have an opposite disposition (intellectually arrogant, biased, intolerant, emotional, disorganized, lazy, heedless of consequences, indifferent toward new information, mistrustful of reasoning, or imprudent) are more likely to encounter problems in using their critical-thinking skills. ~*don’t be one of those people*~

If you don’t understand a word, look it up.  That’s how you learn.  How often do you see, hear, or read a tiny snippet of information about something, have some sort of wonder, curiosity, confusion or interest in such topic, yet fail to follow up on it?  Maybe a half second letter you go meh, whatever and then move on with your life.  What’s holding you back from pursuing it?

Is looking up and researching something as exciting as the latest and greatest television show, movie, or video game?  Maybe not but how much time do you spend each day towards these types of things?  How much time do you spend staring at your computer or smartphone for pure entertainment or time wasting purposes? I think you can sacrifice a few minutes here and there to research and learn about something new, or explore a little deeper something that you’ve come across before.  Learning can be fun too, I promise haha.

Relax

Alright I’m done with that.  Let’s change it up.  We all live fast-paced stressful lives even during times when we have absolutely nothing to be stressed about, and absolutely no reason to be in a rush.  Let’s settle down a little bit shall we?  I’d like you to relax…

After you’re done reading this paragraph I want you to close both of your eyes.  Get in a comfortable position wherever you are.  Try and maintain at least somewhat of proper posture; that is if you can muster the courage to place such a burden on yourself. I want you to breathe in and out very deeply, completely filling your lungs, and completely emptying them.  I want you to do this in a very slow and controlled manner, with each inhale and exhale taking AT LEAST 5 seconds, but probably closer to 10.  (no need to count just do it by feel)  As you inhale, you should feel your diaphragm (stomach area) slowwwwwwwwwwly expanding outwards.  When your lungs can’t possibly inhale any more air, I want you to hold your breath very briefly, maybe half a second.  Then  slowwwwwwwwwwwly exhale until every bit of air is gone.  Start the process over.  In.  And out.  Slowly.  And deeply. Over.  And over.  Do this at least 10 times.  Do this without thinking about anyone or anything.  Try and clear your mind.  No thoughts.  No emotions.  Simply exist for a few moments.  You will enter a relaxed state of being.  Place your fingers on your wrist or neck and feel your pulse.  You will feel your pulse slow down some, and perhaps even your blood pressure decrease.  

Now I know what some of you are thinking: this is dumb, what the fuck is this, I’m not doing this, yadda yadda yadda, etc.  I’m not forcing you to do anything but do you really have anything better to do?  If you’re in a rush or skimming through this, then maybe you should come back another time.  Re-read the above paragraph and just do it.  I suggest breathing in and out 10 times, but a few minutes or more would be great.   

Do it.  Tell me you don’t feel more calm and relaxed.  Tell me you don’t feel a bit of your stress just melt away.  I guarantee you won’t be able to.  Try this simple relaxation technique and continue on below...

Perspective

Now that I hopefully have you in a subtler state of mind,  I want to give you a little perspective on your size, place, and significance in the universe.  It may be something you've never learned about, or even thought about.  I find it fun and fascinating. Perhaps you will too.

This first video is 3 and a half minutes long, titled the Pale Blue Dot, and narrated by American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator Carl Sagan.  Below the video is the transcript.

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. 

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. 

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. 

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

This next video is just 2 and a half minutes long, and does a great job illustrating size throughout the universe.  It starts with our friendly moon, and works its way all the way up to the largest known star.

This last video is 3 and a half minutes long.  Astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson was asked by a reader of TIME magazine, "What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?" This is his answer.

"In fact, given the chemistry of it all and the nuclear physics of it all, not only are we in the universe, the universe is in us.  And I don't know any deeper spiritual feeling than what that brings upon me.  And I just wanted to leave you with those thoughts." - Neil DeGrasse Tyson