Do you believe that you should always trust your intuition, no matter what?

[adamjanovic]

Do you believe that you should always trust and follow your intuition no matter what, even if the logical side of your brain is telling you that you’re just being irrational? For example, if you just get a bad or uneasy feeling about a particular person and/or situation, even though on the outside all appears to be fine, you should go with your instinct? Or do you think you should try to convince yourself that you’re just being paranoid, because maybe you are just being silly? What do you think? In my own experience, anytime I’ve been in a situation where I just didn’t get a good feeling about someone, and I couldn’t explain why, in the end I turned out to be right. But not before almost getting myself into trouble because I would just convince myself that I was being ridiculous because they seemed to be a nice, normal person (note that I used the word “seemed”). Has your intuition ever been wrong? Or do you have any examples of when you trusted it above all else and you were glad you did?

Yes, always trust your intuition

No, your intuition isn’t always right

[Dongtai]

There’s a difference between trusting your intuition and just being emotional about a situation. If you can distinguish the two then always trust your gut.

Your gut is like a smoke detector. It lets you know when trouble is close. But your intuition can become faulty overtime if aren’t in control of your feelings.

Here’s an example.

You see a cute guy and you want to meet him. But your nervous and you don’t want to approach him because he might not like you and that would be embarrassing. Is that your gut or you responding to personal feelings you have about yourself? Your gut just told you there’s someone you might like close by and its actually telling you to go meet him. But your own doubt is stopping you from listening.

The gut can also warn you about good things as well.

Here’s an example of danger.

You’re driving on the highway and you get a text message. You take a quick glance and see your phone is in the cup holder. You hesitate as you watch cars passing. Something is saying don’t.

That’s your gut. Your gut is there to keep you alive and lead you to good. Animals have it too. It’s called instinct. That’s why prey type creatures like rabbits and birds flee whenever you get close. Some people have a very strong intuition.

It’s very possible to sense the good and bad in a person just by seeing them. But you have to distinguish your gut from your personal feelings. Your gut feeling is usually intrusive. You get that feeling immediately. Not after having to think about it.

[SuperManiac]

I've learned to almost deliberately distrust my intuition as much as possible playing Poker (not professionally, just for trivial sums of money although I built a bankroll based on a single $20 deposit to thousands playing micro-stakes). In that case, trying to go by hunches (like trying to pin opponents on an exact hand as opposed to a possible range of hands) is at least a much slower way to improve than thinking in a more analytical way. Poker players who just bleed money go by their intuition and assign way too much confidence to their hunches.

I don't completely ignore it but it's like I assign a very low degree of certainty to my intuitions. It's like I might say there's a 10% chance that my hunch here might be correct: enough to prompt further investigation in that direction but definitely nowhere close to 100% certainty. Otherwise we're very susceptible to superstitions.

Of course if I'm in a scenario where I have to make a snap decision and much further investigation and thinking is not possible, then I have to go by my intuition/instincts. There's no time to investigate and deliberate alternative conjectures. But otherwise I prefer to have a great deal of skepticism towards my own hunches.

[SuperManiac]

I also think relying too much on intuition can lead to very judgmental thinking. Intuition is very susceptible to superstition.

So, for example, someone might have a bad experience with a few people that belong in a certain identifiable group, only to then develop the intuition that all people in this group are bad people. Then we get discrimination and judgmental thinking (as in jumping to conclusions about people absent sufficient data) and so forth.

That's not too dissimilar from people doing ritualistic rain dances to cure droughts since someone happened to dance one day and it happened to rain soon after, only to now tune their intuitions into thinking they have control over rain. So I think it's worth applying skepticism to our hunches.

[SuperManiac]

Actually Poker was very interesting in teaching me a lot about human psychology. It's like if a beginner in a big blind gets shoved on several times in a row from the small blind, he might call and find his opponent holds aces (strongest possible hand). But now he's conflating bad luck with a bad decision. Yet now he's in a state where his intuition might now tell him that every time a short stack shoves on him from the small blind, he must be holding a very strong hand. And that's the fault of intuition, and it's also guided by fear and superstition in this scenario. And that's another biasing factor of intuition -- it can be biased not only by superstition but also very heavily by fear.

[Anonymous]

I do. Every time I've second guessed it, I was right the first time.

I like to always give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance no matter what provided they don't give off dangerous, serial killer vibes, but any time I've gotten an off feeling about someone and I couldn't put my finger on why, there ended up being a reason for it and I soon found out why.

Also, if I get a strong gut feeling not to do something, I always follow it, no matter how silly it seems. Usually, I've gotten this feeling about sketchy parties I was invited to and things like that. There was a time a friend of mine had a boyfriend that just really rubbed me the wrong way and tripped all of my alarm bells telling me to get the hell out of Dodge, and she wanted me to meet up with them at a pretty quiet mall where some shady stuff has happened. I got that sickening feeling in my stomach and canceled. She was pissed, but the guy ended up being highly dangerous and unpredictable, so I don't regret it. I also skipped a party I was invited to because of another very weird person who was very weirdly insistent on the guests being drunk and sleeping over at his house. I already had a weird feeling to begin with for seemingly no reason, but that completely rubbed me the wrong way.

Any time I've been driving and I get the feeling a certain car is going to do something stupid, it never fails. The car can be driving completely calmly before it happens, too.

[Anonymous]

I agree with everything you said! Sometimes you just get a gut feeling, and you don't always want to believe it, but in my experience, my intuition has never been wrong.

I even had an experience once where I walked past a guy in a restaurant and got a majorly creepy vibe. Everything in me was telling me this guy was bad news. He ended up following me out to my car. Because of my intuition, I walked very fast, got in my car and immediately locked the doors. I went to put my seat belt on and when I lifted my head a second later, the guy's face was literally inches away from my window. I threw the car into reverse and took off! I know this is probably not what you meant by your question, but I'm convinced that listening to my intuition that day may have saved my life.

[sawno]

My intuition is usually correct about something, but that is because its grounded in what i call my "Web of logic". If something doesn't fit in that web yet touches upon something i already grounded then it is usually false information and something more is going on. If it touches about something not yet in the web i try and figure things out and ground it so that i can use it later.

The whole thing helps a lot with problem solving in both IT and politics but also in my personal life and spiritual beliefs.
And it especially helps when dealing with irrational emotional people. Because ill immediately pick out the unfitting behavior and ill immediately understand something is up. Its then up to me to find out what is up and help them.

[holograph]

I don't, and I also don't think that we can ever have an accurate idea of how often our intuition is right without really sitting down and analyzing it. Because I believe biases like selection bias are going to make us unable to effectively analyze our intuition, at least without putting in a lot of effort to do it. I think we're likely to ignore a lot of information about our own decision making process. Partially because we don't like to admit when we're wrong (even to ourselves) and partially because there is just too much information for us to be able to analyze it fully.

Basically, I think that any time we don't trust our intuition, we're probably not even going to pay attention to whether it was correct at all (except in extreme cases).

[floatingboats]

For most of your life, I would declare yes! Trust your instincts, your intuition, your spidey senses. But one thing I have learned from physics, chem and gymnasium is that things will never go 100% according to plan. Murphy's law is ever present and sometimes it's just there to put you down. Sometimes I do find myself preparing for an "obvious" turd cinema only to react and end up being the cause and star of that show. I rather have tried learning how to consciously piece together context, body language, any little info I could use to tell me what's going on. I will say perhaps i don't excel at reading situations or are just paranoid and impulsive

[TheKack]

Without exaggeration, I'd be dead if I trusted my intuition all the time.

If everyone trusted their intuition all the time, the world would have a lot of suicides, agoraphobes, and rampant paranoia. People aren't super sane, and if they didn't act logically, they'd likely find themselves in a downward spiral.

Outside of all of that, it should definitely be considered. If you pay attention to your gut feeling on things, you can often avoid falling into making logical, but poorly researched, decisions. I also think that, sometimes, your subconscious has some sort of innate knowledge and tries to guide you away from poor decisions.

[916seeker]

Intuition is a thought, idea, or belief about something which was based factors other than logic and sound reasoning. I am not by any means dismissing the value of intuition but we often want to belive something to be true that we convince ourselves that perhaps the heart and soul have wisdom that transcends logic, and that is when people get in trouble, in my opinion. If your intuition is telling you one thing and logic is telling you something very different you may want to look at the motives you have for trusting your intuition over logic. I would also suggest you talk to a trusted friend about the matter to get an opinion from one who has no skin in the matter. The consequences of being wrong are also to be considered. If there is little to be lost in the matter if you misplace your trust than see what your intuition is telling you to look at and from there make a more informed decision, or a decision you can defend with more passion.

[LanceLa]

Sometimes it's right, sure. But other times I'm just scared and I need to push myself. Even if I don't end up the happiest, it will help me in the long run. Sometimes I should of trusted my intuition but I realized if I just do whatever without caring it leads to unknown areas.

[TreeO2]

Ususally it is right and not based on nothing so yes I trust it. I would have gathered a certain amount of information at the very least before getting an uneasy feeling about something, try to look at the situation logically, and also take note of why I may be getting a bad feeling about the person or situation. What have I observed of them so far that may have triggered a red flag, what is the context of the situation etc.

[Diiamondz825]

Most definitely trust your intuition ladies. That is like our super power. When our gut feeling is telling us something we just know it’s true without facts. Sometimes it’s kind of scary that you just know and then you find out the truth and it’s even more scared Because it’s kind of like being psychic

[Dsg1193]

With people, my gut is usually right. But having an instinct about predicting things, like oh I’ll get the job or I failed the test, I’ve been wrong about those things before. Once I swore my car was no longer able to be used because it wouldn’t start. I convinced myself and prepared for the worst, I had a feeling my car would turn to shit the second I paid it off. In fact, I simply needed to replace the battery. So yeah, I’m right for the most part but not always.

[megaman242]

Intuition can be corrupted by destructive events in your life that have given you a metal issue. Meaning your intuition is not true but manipulated by your own problems. You need to take a step back and really think about what is going on, who that person is, what have happened. What's the most lightly situation that actually happened. Breathe and relax.

[Stingray444]

Usually it does me good 👍

I have extremely good intuition at times.. Some times of my past, it even was like a 'Spidey-sense' when paying attention to my intuition

Random tip, I think your intuition comes from your pineal gland

[Lone099]

Yep. I believe I have a very very strong intuition but I never pay attention to it because somehow it doesn't make sense to me. How can you just know things? So yeah I always ignore it and land in crap. Then I wish I had trusted my guy feeling.

[Lone099]

*gut
Typooo

[0112358]

I’m amazed that anyone would think this to be true. Seeing the voting explains a lot about the world.

[LegitChipmmunk]

I think it is best to look at a situation logically and determine a solution after gaining further information

[markscott]

You should always listen to your intuition, knowing that a high percentage of the time it is right. But it is not infallible.

[AuroraRoseat]

It’s not always right but in situations where there’s isn’t sufficient evidence to prove that your gut is wrong, go with your gut.

[normalice]

No. Especially in today's environment, in which the media thrives on people who "trust their intuition," by helping guide people's intuition.

[dragonfruitA]

I don't really pay attention to intuition. When I act upon things, I act on two things: my heart and my fearlessness.

[Shahax]

Intuition is literally you connecting the dots and noticing a pattern, if your wrong you correct yourself so you can be more accurat in the future

[Darknut]

I trusted it, it felt right. Met a person on here a few days ago from England. Very polite. I get the vibe though the conversation died down and she's bored. Either that or the knowing I'm way down here in NC turned her off.