Why We Defend Bad Decisions

Hi there,

What’s stranger than believing the world will end on a specific date?
Believing it even after it doesn’t.

That’s exactly what happened to The Seekers in 1954.

On December 21st, the cult gathered for the apocalypse. They believed the earth would be swallowed by catastrophic floods, but a UFO would come to rescue them. Members sold their belongings, abandoned their families, and huddled together in a dark house, waiting for midnight.

Midnight came. Nothing happened…

But instead of scattering in shame, the group doubled down, more convinced than ever that their faith had saved the planet.

How? One phrase explains it: cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is the psychological conflict that arises when you hold two contradictory beliefs at once. For The Seekers, it was the certainty that the world had ended and the undeniable fact that it hadn’t. To resolve the tension, they clung to a third story: their devotion had spared humanity.

🔗 The Day After the Apocalypse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yVuauQjkDc

Why We Double Down

The uncomfortable truth is that cognitive dissonance isn’t just confined to cults. It’s in your life and mine, every single day.

The brain hates being wrong. Not because it ruins your reputation, but because it feels like a threat to your identity.

If I admit my decision was flawed, what does that say about me? Does it say I’m careless? Or foolish? Or unlovable?

So we contort. We justify. We spin stories to make the uncomfortable comfortable.

• He only yells because he loves me so much.

• This career is crushing me, but at least it pays well.

• Sure, I overspent on that blender, but my smoothies are basically therapy.

That’s cognitive dissonance at work. We’d rather rewrite reality than face the sting of being wrong and having to recreate a new version of ourselves.

Here’s where I confess: I once joined my own “apocalyptic cult.”

No UFOs or robe… actually some robes. But mine was called law school.

I convinced myself becoming a lawyer was the only respectable path. Even when I realized I hated the contentious nature of the adversarial legal system, I doubled down. I told myself: This is who I am. This is how people see me. This is what success looks like.

But the cracks showed in my life. I dreaded Sundays. My chest tightened before big negotiations. I would sit in my car before walking into the courthouse and think, “If this is success, why do I feel like I’m suffocating?”

Admitting I was wrong about law felt like failure. Like betrayal of years of work, of my family’s pride, of my own story.

But here’s the paradox: the moment I said it out loud: I was wrong, I felt lighter. The chains loosened. For the first time in years, I could breathe. And that was the beginning of carving out a new identity and path for myself.

The Hidden Cost of Dissonance

Here’s the lie most of us believe: Admitting you’re wrong makes you weak.
The truth is it sets you free.

Think about it. When you deny being wrong, you chain yourself to the very thing that’s hurting you. The cult members shackled themselves tighter after the failed prophecy.

I shackled myself to a career that was soul sucking.

You might be shackling yourself right now, to a diet, a belief, a relationship, a path that stopped fitting long ago.

Admitting you’re wrong and giving yourself space to create a new identity might be just what you need. It be the release that your body is waiting for. It means you value truth more than ego. It means you’re updating your life to match reality instead of bending reality to match your story.

Here’s what’s insidious: cognitive dissonance doesn’t just waste time. It drains life.

• Years in the wrong relationship because it feels easier than facing regret.

• Decades in the wrong job because sunk costs shout louder than intuition.

Entire identities built on outdated beliefs because changing them would mean rewriting the self.

The Seekers lost credibility, jobs, and families clinging to their false prophecy.

We lose just as much, quietly, when we refuse to say, I was wrong. And I invested in path that doesn’t suit me.

READER POLL

Final Thought

Scientists don’t crumble when their hypothesis fails. They don’t sit in a lab coat muttering, I’ve wasted my life on a false theory. They treat the new evidence as data. They update. They experiment again.

What if you lived the same way?

When life hands you results you didn’t expect, a career that doesn’t fit, a relationship that drains you, a dream that fizzles, that isn’t failure. It’s feedback. It’s reality saying: Try another experiment.

A well-lived life isn’t one of flawless predictions. It’s one of bold trials. Of testing and retesting. Of giving yourself room to evolve beyond your comfort zone, beyond the identities you or others once carved in stone.

You don’t have to defend old worlds that no longer exist. You can create new ones. Again and again.

Because life isn’t about being right, it’s about being brave enough to keep testing.

Stay curious,

Shakila

P.P.S. Here’s the results of last week’s poll.