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RIGHT TURN

Exchanging ideas: Sharing of thoughts leads to opinion building that differs between individuals.

Some students strongly believe that they are lazy, lack concentration and memory. “Beliefs” are basically someone’s own understanding, which may differ from truth and reality. Truth is a concept that can be proved to be a fact, based on evidence and logical authenticity. Believing means not willing to know what is a fact with an open mind that is not closed by blind faith. Believers claim that they know the truth and are inconvincible. For instance, those students who consider that statistics is a difficult subject, never accept the truth that once you understand and work on it, it is the most interesting subject, where you can score hundred percent marks like in mathematics.

Extreme beliefs sometimes may lead to hallucinations and magical thinking. An old lady comes to the doctor complaining of hearing voices for past 7 months and believes that the TV is giving her special messages. It is called ‘hallucination’. When a person is strongly convinced in his extra sensory powers and argues that he has the capacity to foresee, forecast or dream the future events that happen to him or to others, it is called ‘magical thinking’. The person never accepts the fact that he remembers only those dreams that became true, but never considers those that do not occur.

Opinion is a view that is less extreme than belief. An opinion is used to convince your-self and others. Many parents erroneously opine that their child is scoring fewer marks because of lack of concentration and memory power. No student is weak either with concentration or memory. Priorities differ. A student who can recall and tell a movie story seeing it once, or who remembers names of actors and cricketers can not claim inadequate memory and concentration.

Same principle applies to laziness. Laziness means opting for an interesting thing at the cost of a useful thing. A mother accuses her son of laziness, when the boy hurriedly runs to play cricket without changing the school uniform.

A belief, when canvassed about an incident or a person, without truth in it, becomes a rumor. Rumor is the only thing that becomes thicker while spreading. Why is there no Nobel Prize for mathematics? It is the opinion of many that Nobel’s daughter married a Swedish mathematician against his consent. The story persists, no matter how often one repeats the plain fact that Alfred Nobel was never married.

Krishnakumar from Vizag wants to know the difference between a Psychologist and a Psychiatrist. An expert who merely counsels is called psychologist, and a doctor who treats mental patients with medication and suggestions is called a psychiatrist.

YANDAMOORI VEERENDRANATH

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