Are Animals More Intuitive Than People? (part 2)
October 17th 2007 22:33
We tend to trust the intuition of animals but funnily enough, we will often discount our own. Whether you call it gut feelings, hunches, or that weird feeling of the hairs rising at the back of your head, we would rather believe the best of people to the point where we put ourselves in danger. Some might even call this giving others the benefit of the doubt but how useful is this philosophy when you end up attacked?
Safety expert and author Gavin de Becker believes that people are far more intuitive than animals. However, this sixth sense, if you like, is often not put to good use as people have a tendency of discounting their gut feelings. It sounds simplistic but de Becker believes that since animals lack judgement, they will always act on their hunches so in this respect, they are smarter than humans.
For example, de Becker writes in his book Protecting the Gift, “Imagine an impala in Africa looking at a lion and thinking, “But this is a nice lion.”” As ludicrous as this sounds when applied to the animal kingdom, this is something humans do everyday. How often have you come across someone behaving suspiciously and brushing it off by saying, “Oh, it’s nothing” or “I’m not going to go around looking over my shoulder. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt rather than assume he’s going to try something.”
This is why I’ve learnt from experience to always trust my gut feelings. Whenever I am suspicious of someone (suspicion being a sign of intuition says de Becker in his first book The Gift of Fear) I automatically think about how an animal would react in the wild if it thought it is going to be attacked and I get myself away from the person immediately.
And once I am safe at home I feel grateful that I listened to my inner warning system just as an impala must feel once it has fled from the lion.
Safety expert and author Gavin de Becker believes that people are far more intuitive than animals. However, this sixth sense, if you like, is often not put to good use as people have a tendency of discounting their gut feelings. It sounds simplistic but de Becker believes that since animals lack judgement, they will always act on their hunches so in this respect, they are smarter than humans.
For example, de Becker writes in his book Protecting the Gift, “Imagine an impala in Africa looking at a lion and thinking, “But this is a nice lion.”” As ludicrous as this sounds when applied to the animal kingdom, this is something humans do everyday. How often have you come across someone behaving suspiciously and brushing it off by saying, “Oh, it’s nothing” or “I’m not going to go around looking over my shoulder. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt rather than assume he’s going to try something.”
This is why I’ve learnt from experience to always trust my gut feelings. Whenever I am suspicious of someone (suspicion being a sign of intuition says de Becker in his first book The Gift of Fear) I automatically think about how an animal would react in the wild if it thought it is going to be attacked and I get myself away from the person immediately.
And once I am safe at home I feel grateful that I listened to my inner warning system just as an impala must feel once it has fled from the lion.
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