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There are some of us who are perfectionists.

There are some of us who see the glass as either full or either completely empty. There are some of us who want to be everything at once, or nothing at all.

In psychology, this is commonly known as black and white thinking.

Explained in simpler terms, black and white is a psychological condition that makes people think in absolutes. In extremities. As either the endless positive or the endless negative.

Either you are a world leader, the most amazing person ever, or you are the biggest failure ever.

This black and white thinking makes you see either the black area or the white area. It makes you believe that nothing in-between exists. Life is either good or bad.

For the people who think like this, the black-and-white thinkers, let me introduce you to the grey areas.

There’s this sweet friend of mine who’s literally the best one you could ask for. The only downside being, she suffers from black and white thinking (Hi, bestie!)

For her, either her grades are perfect A, or nothing at all (that’s why she tries a little too hard for it sometimes). She’s either right or wrong. For her, the world and its people are all black and white. (She must be reading this now and wondering why I’ve only described her with this trait).

So this friend of mine who thinks in black and white and who I won’t take the name of, this is for you.

I really don’t like it when you criticize yourself for not living upto yours or your teachers’ expectations. I really don’t like it when you sabotage yourself, or cut your skills short. I hope you change the world in your own way too.

Changing the world is all about thinking, we should pre-establish that. Changing the world is about thinking in such a revolutionary way that the earth is moved by your ideas and personality, that you give something new to this planet, that you help it in a way that’s affordable on an individual level but sustainable on a wider level.

Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I shall move the earth.

Archimedes

It’s these types of new thoughts (no matter how old they actually are) that we need to change the world.

The world needs new minds, new ideas, new processes and methods of solving the same old problems (because the old ones probably didn’t work).

For that, we need to free ourselves from the limit lines of black and white. We need to tread into the grey areas.

Black and white thinking is also known as Polarised thinking, All or Nothing thinking, Dichotomous thinking and it makes people think in absolutes, making them rigid and unable to venture into the ever present grey areas.

Black and white thinking hurts you, and affects you in more ways than you can imagine. It limits you, and prevents you from achieving the desired goals. It makes you believe there exists a line and that there are only two sides.

Are we always right?

No, we’re not. Of course, we’re not.

There’s this thing of never having a hundred perfect surety in anything. That means that even if we think we’re right, even if we’re sure we’re right, like there’s no other alternative at all—even in that situation, there exists a small, miniscule possibility that we might be wrong, that what we’re saying isn’t entirely the truth, or isn’t the entire truth.

We are not always right, and just accepting this fact takes us many steps ahead in our journey of battling black and white thinking and not letting it consume our minds.

Massive amounts of self-hatred and failure in oneself arise from the feeling that we always have to be right and if someone else tells that we are not, or rather, proves that we are not, then we are a failure and a coward for not making them eat mud and drilling it into their heads that it’s them who’re wrong instead.

If you are struggling with the rigid notion somewhere in your mind that you always have to be right, and that there’s no other way out—then this is where you start opening up your mind for faults and shortcomings.

This is your time to accept your failures, and the victories of other, conflicting ideas.

You need to know that you can’t always be right, and it’s okay when you aren’t.

Are we always wrong?

No, we’re not. Of course, we’re not.

All the contrasting ideas accompany each other. With good there comes evil. With victory there comes sacrifice (at least in fantasy novels). With the laughter there comes along a tinge of sorrow (thats how the realistic fiction writers put it.)

With the notion of us not always been right, there also comes the belief that we’re not always wrong either.

No matter how unlikely it seems, no matter how much you believe that it just isn’t the solution, there always might be this flicker of possibility that you’re actually aiming the correct way.

Black and white thinking is not just always about having rigid positive extremes, it’s also about having rigid negative extremes.

Some people have so low self-esteem that they’re sure they can never be right.

I’m not associating this behaviour with black and white thinking, but the the friend I won’t take a name of (lets just call her A) has rigid extremes relating to a good day and a bad day.

Sometimes she’s undoubtedly right. Sometimes she’s “undoubtedly wrong”.

If you’re struggling with the strong negative thought that you’re wrong in every situation, then you should start building up the necessary self-confidence to take chances.

We can’t be always wrong (that’d be the hardest luck in the world and that just doesn’t exist).

Even if you have been embarrassed many times in the past, it doesn’t mean that it would be the same this time too.

Sometimes we need to let go of society’s expectations and standards imposed on us, and our own self-image of how we should be.

Sometimes we need to take chances. If we believe strongly in something, it might just be the right time to take chances.

How to let go of black and white thinking?

Let go of society’s expectations of who you should be

Most of us suffer because we’ve got these expectations from society that we feel that we need to fulfill. It’s true. The people around us expect a lot from us, and then they call us out if we’re not what they want us to be.

If anything we do bothers them, then they point it out—not too nicely—and then behave as if we’re accountable to them for what we do.

We need to let go of the society’s expectations, let go of the ideas and views that others hold towards us if we know that they aren’t helping us forward.

Let go of the complex, hard-shelled beliefs you have regarding who you should be

It’s not always the society that’s pulling us back or sabotaging our thoughts. Sometimes we ourselves, unknowingly, end up sabotaging ourselves, by holding certain ideas we have regarding who we should be.

Sometimes when we don’t own up to our own expectations, it occupies our minds—this feeling of something being missing. So, we’ve got to stop being so hard on ourselves; we’ve got to understand that whoever we are, there’s room for growth for the future, and everything is fine in today.

You’re here for a short period of time.

This won’t be forever.

If you’ve failed, it isn’t permanent. If you’ve succeeded, it isn’t permanent either.

So letting these failures or these victories occupying your mind is not a very smart thing to do. It wastes time, mental energy, reduces productivity and we end up sulking the whole day.

Instead of this harmful behaviors, we should keep in our minds that whatever small, mindless things we’re thinking about, it porbably doesn’t matter. We’re here for a short period of time. There’s no time to second-guess. There’s no time to worry. If you’ve failed once, try again.

Don’t let any single moment, any single day, any single thought go to waste.

No one cares. No one remember.

That time you embarrassed yourself? Don’t think about it. No one cares. Probably no one even remembers.

I sometimes remember this day in eighth grade when I was attending online study classes and had mistakenly left my microphone on. I wouldn’t tell you what my whole class along with the teacher heard. No one cares. No one even remembers. It’s just I who do.

That’s the thing with most of us. We’re spending our time thinking about past memories and humiliating incidences and bad days which we definitely don’t want to ever live again.

We need to stop thinking about them now. No on cares what happened to you. They only care about what happened to them. No one remembers what happened to you. They’re all busy remembering the times they embarrassed themselves.

Journal to heal.

Journaling helps you let go of negative thoughts and emotions that are holding you back and being the biggest obstacle in your path of healing and growing.

Black and white thinking, of course, without a doubt stops you from achieving your full potential and living up to your capabilities. And it’s especially awful when you think that you can’t do anything about it.

News flash: you can. Here are some of the Journaling prompts you can begin with.

If you’re not able to do the sudoku, just leave it.

A needs to listen to this. If you can’t complete the sudoku, if the numbers don’t fit in your eyes, if your mind’s tired and all, then you need to just leave it for now.

I’ve seen countless instances where A has spent the whole library periods, PE periods in completing the sudoku. She’s even done it right under the teacher’s gaze, hiding it under the table as she pretends to focus in the class.

What I really mean to say with the sudoku example is that if the thing doesn’t make sense, if the puzzle piece doesn’t fit, if you’re tired right now and can’t do it, just leave it. You can try again later.

Buy some nice books

Some really nice books you wat to read, ask me? Even if you’re not a reader, even if reading makes you sleepy (someone actually said this to me, that reading made them sleepy, and I just prayed for them because god help someone who doesn’t read), reading some books is just necessary.

Especially if you’re battling with mental issues and want to get better and resolve your thoughts, of course there are books for you too.

Some of the best ones I’ve read are: The Mountain is You, by Brianna Weist

100 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think, by Brianna Weist

Think Like A Monk, by Jay Shetty

You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, by Erik Jorgenson

Let lose yourself on hard-core visions

Let yourself a little lose on whatever hard-core visions you have regarding a dream future.

Life happens in today. It’s in the now. The root of all unhappiness is expectations.

I’m not asking you to lay low, or dream small. I myself am a big dreamer, and I spend every single minute or every single day with a dream going round and round in my mind. But unhappiness and unsatisfaction actually do arise from expecting too much, and having this rigid idea regarding how tomorrow is supposed to be.

All we’ve gotta do is be the best in today. All we have to do is look at the 24 hours in front of us and live them to the fullest, so that we don’t regret the past when we’re actually in the big, luxurious future we’d dreamed of.

Black and white thinking is harmful for health, that’s a given. All the perfectionists are just sabotaging themselves when they’re letting their failures and shortcoming define them.

We need to give space to the times when we fail, when we fall short of the desired target. We need to accept that we aren’t always right, and we aren’t wrong either. It comes with experiences, I think, knowing when you need to take your stand and when you need to stay back. Experience comes with age.

For now, all that we can do is try to battle the extremities, try to live in the gray area. For professional advice relating to freeing yourself from black and white thinking, do take a look here [How Black and White Thinking Hurts You (and What You Can Do to Change It)].