The Blind Spots of Adulthood

There is a significant difference between adults and children. Before adults say or do something, we tend to take more things into account. We think about how the other person might react, whether they might be offended, whether it could affect the relationship, whether it might start an unnecessary argument, and sometimes whether saying anything is worth the trouble at all.

That ability is part of maturity. But it also produces an interesting consequence: honest and accurate feedback between adults is probably much rarer than we imagine.

We may see someone doing something that is clearly wrong, or at least obviously problematic, and still decide not to point it out. We might simply say, “That’s good,” find some harmless positive detail to praise, or say nothing at all.

The reason is simple. Correcting another adult has a cost.

You have to judge whether the person is willing to listen, whether they will take a criticism of what they are doing as a criticism of who they are, whether they will become upset or defensive, or even turn around and attack you. Once we have had a few experiences like that, we naturally become more cautious. Eventually, even when we can see the problem quite clearly, we may decide that it is simply not worth saying anything.

This is a perfectly normal way of managing adult relationships. Over time, however, it can create a strange effect.

Most of us like encouragement. When someone praises us, it is easy to interpret that praise as confirmation: I am doing the right thing; my judgement is sound; perhaps this is even one of my strengths.

But positive feedback does not necessarily mean that the other person thinks we are right.

Sometimes people are simply being polite. Sometimes they do not want an argument. Sometimes they see no reason to embarrass us. And sometimes they already know from experience that expressing a different opinion will lead nowhere, so they remain silent.

In this way, something that might have been corrected is left untouched.

At my age, many of my old classmates and friends have retired or are approaching retirement. Once work no longer provides the structure of everyday life, people naturally begin to find new things to occupy their time. Some become serious about tea. Some travel constantly. Others take up photography or calligraphy, research family names and genealogy, or become interested in fortune-telling, feng shui, and all sorts of subjects they never had time to explore while they were working.

There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this.

After retirement, people are entitled to their interests. They can spend years studying something that others regard as pointless. If it gives them pleasure and does not affect anyone else, that is enough. Not everything in life needs a practical purpose. Sometimes a hobby is simply a hobby, a way of filling time and giving shape to everyday life.

The more interesting problem begins somewhere else.

It begins when someone not only believes something personally but becomes increasingly certain that their understanding is correct, and then starts passing it on to other people. If the ideas themselves are seriously mistaken, while everyone around them continues to say, “That’s fascinating,” “That makes sense,” or “You’ve really studied this deeply” simply because nobody wants to offend them, that apparently positive feedback can steadily reinforce their confidence.

The person may have no bad intentions at all. Quite the opposite. They may sincerely believe they are helping. They share their experience, explain the “truths” they have discovered, and enthusiastically advise other people on how to live, look after their health, invest their money, or understand the world.

But good intentions do not guarantee good consequences.

If a mistaken idea remains a private interest, its consequences may be negligible. Once it begins to spread outward, influences other people’s judgement and decisions, or causes them real trouble, it is no longer merely a personal hobby. It has begun to create a social side effect.

This is something I think we need to be more alert to as we get older.

With age comes experience, but also the possibility that ways of thinking become increasingly fixed. Habits, judgements and ideas about ourselves formed over decades can gradually harden into inertia. If we are also surrounded by old friends who respond with polite approval, it becomes easy to mistake that inertia for maturity, and the absence of disagreement for evidence that we must be right.

In a sense, this is another form of being spoiled.

We usually think of spoiling as something parents do to children or older generations do to the young. But adults can indulge one another as well. Friends, old classmates, couples and long-time acquaintances can all fall into this pattern.

I think what you are saying is wrong, but I do not want to offend you, so I say, “You have a point.”

You think there is something wrong with what I am doing, but after all these years of friendship you see no reason to make an issue of it, so you say, “Looks good.”

Over time, what we give each other is no longer genuine feedback but feedback designed to keep everyone comfortable. We get along. Nobody is offended. Everything remains pleasant. Yet the blind spots each of us already has may become more firmly established through this mutual indulgence.

This may explain why people can sometimes drift further off course while becoming more confident at the same time.

It is not that nobody sees the problem.

Quite often, many people see it. They simply do not say anything.

What makes this more difficult is that the process is gradual. We are not very good at noticing slow changes in ourselves. Without honest negative feedback from others, we adapt to ourselves and build an increasingly stable explanation of who we are and why we are right. A small problem can slowly become a pronounced one. Something that once made other people mildly uncomfortable can become much worse, while the person concerned continues to receive mostly the socially filtered messages that remain safe to say aloud.

The result can be rather absurd. Someone may move further and further in the wrong direction while continuing to experience what feels like positive feedback. Eventually, the very quality that other people find hardest to tolerate may become the one they are most proud of.

That is why I increasingly think that the older we become, the more open-minded we need to be.

By open-minded, I do not mean chasing every new idea or following fashion. I mean preserving the possibility that we may still be wrong and may still need correction. From time to time, it is worth asking ourselves: Could I be wrong about this? Why do some people disagree? And might the things people choose not to say be more important than the things they do say?

Perhaps what we really need to guard against is not only being misled by others, but also our own inertia and the well-intentioned indulgence of the people around us.

As for why some people regularly hear different opinions while others seem to hear nothing but praise, perhaps the answer does not lie entirely with the people around them.