Everyone has a bucket, and that bucket is your brain. It’s who you are. It’s the thoughts and beliefs that control what you do.

Chapter 1: The Bucket

Every idea, belief, opinion, or piece of Pokémon trivia you have is all in there. In where, you ask? Your bucket. Yeah, that thing between your ears. How often do you clean that thing out? Once a month? Once a week? Never, perhaps? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Someone way smarter and cooler than me once said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and honestly, that’s a pretty based take. If I’m not mistaken, and I so often am, it was Socrates who said this. Dude was a legend. My takeaway from this nugget of wisdom is that if you don’t ever spend any time thinking about how you think, how you live, or how you know, then you’re basically an NPC. A bot. Someone who is just living like a robot, going through the motions. To me, this life would be no different than a tree swaying in the breeze. This lack of self-reflection is, well, kind of annoying when you run into it.

That’s all to say: care about your bucket and what’s inside it. Take some time away from the nine-to-five grind before you’re 60 and realize you traded your youth for a paycheck. You spent hours in meetings that could have been emails, just so your boss could hear themselves talk. When that day comes, you might wish you had used that time for something more meaningful.

Now is the moment to care not just about what you know, but how you know it. Start questioning the old sayings you inherited, like that age-old tale your mom told you when you were five. I remember debating Santa Claus with classmates, trying to prove he wasn’t real. No matter how hard I tried, they didn’t budge. I wonder if they still believe today. Maybe, in their thirties, they’ll read this blog and wonder: is Santa real? After all, the jolly guy hasn’t shown up since they moved out, has he?

Take that time now. Reflect. Ask yourself what you’re taking for granted, and consider whether your assumptions deserve a spot in your bucket. This is your chance to grow before you wish you had.

Chapter 2: The Leaks and Dents

So this bucket, how do you take care of it? Well, if you’re lucky, it should be in decent shape. If you’re born and educated in America, you might be okay. But if you went to school in the Bible Belt, you’re probably cooked.

Anyway, your bucket isn’t perfect. In fact, it’s far from it. It’s not as logical or precise as you might think. Even worse is that once tricked, it’s hard to unlearn. There is a saying often attributed to Mark Twain: “It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” Man, is that true. There are sneaky things called biases and logical fallacies. Biases are what your bucket likes to gravitate towards, even if that thing isn’t the truth. Logical fallacies are when your logical reasoning is flawed in some way, and you just don’t have the awareness or knowledge to know that it’s even broken.

No one is safe from bias, not even me. We should always be genuinely open to being shown that what we once thought was true actually isn’t. And that’s a hard thing to do. I mean, I hate admitting when I’m wrong, but getting owned in an argument or debate so badly that you learn something new is supposed to benefit you. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: “Benefit me? How does getting owned in an argument and realizing I was wrong help me at all?” I mean, those kids in the Fortnite lobby were pretty mean, but they had some good points about why the Earth isn’t flat, and they had the data to back it up. The reason it’s a good thing when someone proves you wrong is that it means you’re growing! You just leveled up. You learned something new! You now have a better understanding of the world around you. Yes, the round world around you. So cheer up! You just became a better person. Though, it does make me wonder why we get angry when we’re corrected. I mean, after all, that’s what’s happening when someone shows you that you’re wrong or you realize it on your own, right? Well, biases aren’t the only thing you should be worried about. The other thing you should be worried about is calories! Wait, I mean logical fallacies! These are what we call errors in reasoning that even smart people make. I know smart people make these mistakes because I make these mistakes but probably not. (No way I make mistakes…).

Circular Reasoning Example

One fallacy I like to point out is circular reasoning. I see this all the time when talking to people about God. The issue is when you try to prove something is the case with arguments, but you use that thing you’re trying to prove in the premises! What are these alien words I’m using? Well, an argument is built on premises. These are the building blocks of your argument. I’ll give you an example:

Valid Argument:

• Premise one: Socrates is a man
• Premise two: All men are mortal
• Therefore, Socrates is mortal

The conclusion naturally follows from the premises. This is where we can better understand circular reasoning, and hopefully this will help you identify it when you hear it, or even if you happen to think this way yourself.

Circular Reasoning:

• Premise one: God created the universe
• Premise two: The universe exists
• Therefore, God exists

Wait, did you catch that? Perhaps you’ve heard something like this before, and maybe somewhere deep inside your gut, you knew something was wrong, but just couldn’t put your finger on it. Well, the answer is it’s a flawed argument. The issue is that the argument is a giant circle! Its conclusion is also in premise one! Someone is trying to prove God exists by appealing to His existence? Wait, I thought that’s what they were trying to prove? Huh.

After explaining this, you might be like, “Man, no one would ever make that mistake; it’s so silly!” and you would be dead wrong. I hear this all the time, and the worst part is I never have the time to fully explain why what I’m hearing isn’t logical, reasonable, or rational. As soon as I mention the words “fallacy” or “premise,” their eyes glaze over and I can see the light in their eyes fade as my plea for logic and reason goes in one ear and out the other.

Chapter 3: The Contents

So this part is going to be all about trying to make sense of what is in your bucket. I mean, we’ve got beliefs, opinions, and knowledge all bouncing around in there. How do we make sense of all this mess? Well, it all starts with a little something called epistemology! Whoa, there. Let’s break it down. It’s just a word to describe the branch of philosophy that examines what knowledge is and when something becomes knowledge. Long story short, it’s the study of “How do I know what I know?” I would invite you to read more about epistemology on your own, as it has many competing theories and ideas currently being debated today. Some of these debates are years old. I don’t have enough time to go over all of epistemology, but we can go over some of the basics. The first thing you need to know is that there is a difference between your standard beliefs and knowledge. I will be glossing over a lot of the deeper, more complex parts for brevity, but the main idea is that knowledge is a justified, true belief. But what does that even mean? Well, let me break it down even more. A belief is when you have a mental state about the world. You are either affirming or denying a position about something. It might or might not be true. Knowledge is when you have a belief, and some justification for it, and it’s true. Yeah, that sounds like a lot, but these conditions are how you can determine if you really know something or not.

I’ll keep it simple for you. Imagine we’re sitting across from each other, and I tell you about the time I was absolutely convinced that you had to crack your knuckles in a specific order or you’d get arthritis because my older brother told me so when I was eight. That was my belief. But then I actually looked into it (the justification part), and it turns out knuckle cracking doesn’t cause arthritis at all. My belief changed because I had evidence. Now picture your coworker who swears they can tell if someone is lying just by looking at their eyes because they “have a gift for reading people.” That’s a belief, sure, but without any real justification backing it up, it’s just overconfidence. Finally, consider when we all “knew” that touching a toad would give you warts. We all believed it, avoided toads like the plague, but it turns out warts come from viruses, not amphibians. The belief was widespread, but it wasn’t true, and there was never any real evidence for it.

That’s the whole point: belief is what you think is the case, truth is what actually is the case, and justification is the evidence that bridges the gap between “I think this” and “I know this.” Without all three pieces, you’re just telling yourself stories that might crumble the moment you actually peek inside your bucket and see what’s really there.

Chapter 4: Cleaning Out the Bucket

Here comes the scary part—the part no one wants to do. Really, we all avoid this because it’s not very fun sometimes. However, I think it’s important, and I try to do it a few times a day, even if it’s just doing a double-take on an already deeply held belief.

I’m talking about doubt.

Many people will have you believe doubt is no good. Some would even say it’s a bad thing, but let me assure you: doubt is one of your greatest abilities! It’s your ability to self-correct. Sometimes doubt is that nagging voice in your head screaming, “Don’t click that link!” when you see a popup that says “Free puppies in your area!” Doubt is a superpower, the double-take of reason. It’s your brain trying to tell you something is off. When I was younger and I would ask, “Mom, how do I know God exists?” she would just brush it off and say something like, “Well, you just have to have faith!”, and when I would hear this, Alarm bells would go off. However, being young, what I would end up doing was suppressing those alarms. After all, it was what I was told to do. I was always told doubt was the devil or something. It wasn’t until one day I gathered the courage to really probe this so-called faith, only to see it for what it really is: a lie. Faith is the act of lying to yourself. Faith is telling yourself something is true, even when you don’t know if it’s true. My point is that doubt freed me, and it can free you too! Now is the time to start unpacking your old beliefs, check for those alarm bells, and question if you really have a good reason for believing something. You might be surprised by what you learn about yourself.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying to just throw away everything you believe today like last week’s salad, but I am saying you should let yourself explore the possibility that your beliefs or baseline assumptions might not be true. Genuinely so.

How to Audit Your Beliefs

So how do I do this, you ask? Well, let’s go through a simple process:

First, start auditing your beliefs every now and then. Take a belief that you hold and probe it. Ask yourself:

• Could you be wrong?
• Why do you believe this?
• Does the belief hold up under scrutiny?

If it doesn’t pass the test, it’s time to let that belief go. It’s better to be unconvinced about something that might be true than to be convinced that something is true even if it isn’t. That’s the worst-case scenario: holding a belief that isn’t true. I would argue it’s better to hold no belief than a false one, since beliefs are what drive your actions, and you don’t want what drives your actions to be based on bad data.

This is all about cleaning out your bucket—going through it and dumping out anything that doesn’t have some good justification tied to it.

To tie it back a bit, some of the methods you learned about with logical fallacies and bias awareness will help here when scrutinizing your beliefs. Hopefully, you find a way to make this practice a habit. You should always have a voice in your head that double-checks you with a “Could I be wrong about this?” Because you never know, that might just help you break out of bad thinking patterns.

Chapter 5: The Filter

Going forward, how do you make sure what you put in your bucket is true? How do you have a good filter?

Applying skepticism and the scientific method to new information rebuilds and maintains a rational perspective. You need a filter on top of your bucket to make sure what goes in is actually true. How though? Start by being skeptical. You might worry that being skeptical forever will leave you convinced of nothing, but hold your horses there René Descartes! Remember that skepticism is not about rejecting everything; it is about demanding evidence before you accept a claim. Don’t be a Gullible Gordon. Last time I told Gordon he could make his way to China if he dug a hole deep enough in his backyard, and ever since, I have not seen him. There is, however, a deep, deep hole in his backyard. Sorry, Gordon!

Now that you are checking the credibility of new information, go deeper by using logic to evaluate whether something is rational. That is where those logical fallacies return to haunt you. Make sure the arguments you accept are not trying to trick you. If someone tells you they have a magic rabbit foot and you ask “How do you know it is magic?” and they reply “Because I have never seen it fail to protect me,” be careful. That is Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, assuming a sequence proves a cause-and-effect relationship instead of seeing coincidence for what it is.

For example, Homer Simpson once said “No bears in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working!” He sees two events (the patrol starts, the bears stop) and assumes the first made the second happen. Lisa satirically claims that her rock keeps tigers away to show the flaw in his logic. Even though no tigers are seen, the lack of tigers is coincidental, just as Homer’s missing bears might have nothing to do with the patrol. Both fall into the same trap of mistaking “after this” for “because of this,” so be careful when your own conclusions try to short circuit evidence in favor of a convenient story.

Demand testable, repeatable evidence instead of hand-wavy stories put together to avoid being proven wrong. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but neither is a tale cobbled together to dodge falsification. Trust the method, not the dodge. Keep asking, “How could this be proven false?” and let that guide what actually lives in your bucket.

Remember, the method in which you know something is just as important as what you know. If your method is unreliable, then you should be skeptical of its results. Prefer independent confirmation, check the quality and methodology of sources, and proportion your confidence to the strength of the evidence. Use the scientific method as a practical workflow: form hypotheses, test reproducibly, and update beliefs based on results. The scientific method works because it is based on making predictions from your hypothesis. While explaining existing data is important, the most convincing test of a hypothesis is its ability to predict new data, things we didn’t know before. It is the hypothesis that is used to generate the test so that it may teach us something new and novel about the world. If that test confirms the prediction, it strengthens our confidence in the hypothesis. Put the burden of proof on the claimant, favor simpler explanations that fit the facts, and stay humble; be ready to revise your views when better evidence appears. Science works by creating models, otherwise known as theories, based on experimentation and observation. One thing that gets under my skin is when someone says, “Well, isn’t evolution just a theory?” as if a theory is just some guess. In science, a theory is anything but a guess; it is a model based on facts, and if it is updated, the theory would just get updated, but the facts would still be there.

Let me tell you a story. Once I met someone who actually believed in Thor, the Marvel version, and Odin too. I asked how he knew these gods were real. He said whenever he prays he sees a sign: a flock of crows or birds. “That is how I know,” he said. I thought, didn’t he see the mistake he is making when it comes to evaluating the truth?

I asked him to imagine three men, each believing in a different god: the circle god, the square god, and the triangle god. One day they each pray for a sign, then stumble across random lines on the ground, curvy, straight, all over. Each man claims the lines prove his god is real. I asked what mistake they were making. He admitted he was not sure, so I explained: they were doing things backwards. They started with a conclusion and then fitted any evidence into that conclusion. If everything is evidence, then nothing is evidence. The better approach is to gather evidence first and then follow where it leads. If they had done that, they would have discovered the marks were just the leftovers of animals playing in the area, no gods required.

If you think your god is real because you see signs, pause and ask: could you call anything a sign? When you work backward from what you want to believe, you lose your grip on the truth. Let the evidence guide you instead.

Chapter 6: Filling the Bucket

So what now? You’ve read the blog, put it into practice, your forehead is now twice as large, and you’ve gained a few psychic abilities. Your doctor has declared that you are now a genius with an IQ of 200+. Now what?

Simple: keep doing it. That’s right. Easy as pie. The point here is to stay consistent. Why? Well, none of this would mean much if you did it for twenty minutes and went back to binging TikTok videos of people cutting into AI cake, would it? Go read some books. See the world using your new perspective and mental toolbox. Become a menace to your friends and family and watch their eyes glaze into a coma when you mention “epistemology” and “Socrates.” Quickly realize that most people don’t care and won’t care about many of the topics here, and be burdened with the knowledge. But ultimately, try to enjoy your life and make it better for those around you when you can. Do the right thing, whatever that means to you, and hold yourself accountable to your own principles. I say this because there is no guide on what to do next. Just make sure you do what you enjoy, and remember: your time is more valuable than money, because you can always get more money, but you can never go back in time. Use this time to learn as much as you can. Always be willing to try new things. Variety is the spice of life.

Chapter 7: Sharing the Water

Okay, but really, what’s next? Teach those around you. Help others when you can.

Only once you have mastered inner peace and have become the wisest sage should you then share that wisdom with those around you. It’s important not to be the smarty-pants kind of person sharing wisdom. Only share when people are open to it. I think it’s a good idea to help people around you. Talk to them, ask about their life, what they like to do. Be nice. Listen. If you’re good at something, share that skill! Make some art, some music, or maybe write a book! Make the world a better place now that you’re in it, and remember to become the change you want to see.