Discovering Your Intelligence

Tyranny of the Right Answer

By Thomas Ganey

You’ve read how it’s human nature that when you find the needle in the haystack you don’t go looking for another one. Something which is like the needle is the right answer. When you have the right answer, you don’t go looking for another one. And so it has a way of stopping thought.

School is very much about the right answer. You are schooled to be smart and when you are smart you get the right answer. And once you have the right answer, thought stops. That takes care of that. On to the next one.

So, now and always, in the regions of your mind, the idea that you have and that you certify to yourself as plainly correct may quite easily close off thought. You have it, but it rules you. This is what all very intelligent people know to be the tyranny of the right answer.