Rationality is not to be confused with morality.

Measure of rationality = Variance between what one conceives as truth and what is the reality.

For example:

Rational person will not buy stocks during speculative bubbles.

Rational person does not fear end of the world with a pandemic.

Rational person does not go into a pandemic without preparation.

Measure of rationality:

Create a daily activity list for a week, go over that list categorizing the decisions as emotional or rational.

RI =      (Rational decisions) / (Total decisions) can show Rationality Index.

EI =   (emotions decisions) / (Total decisions) can show Irrationality Index.

RQ – Rationality Quotient = RI / EI    ( This should be > 1. Higher the better)

Examples of  behavior.

  1. When you are thirsty drinking a glass of water is rational.
  2. When you are thirsty drinking sugared soda is less rational.
  3. When you are thirsty continuing the exercise is emotional.

Realistic appraisal of one’s strengths and weakness.

To become more rational, one must know one’s strengths and weakness. Learning is influenced by these traits. This exercise should not be done by oneself. Even if one does this, do not put too much trust in it. What you believe as your strength, other may notice it as your weakness. Our assessments are not original or final, behind each one there is a force of self judgement. Self judgements are children of past experiences that were victims of full of emotional bias with no provisioning for rationality.

Know thyself is easier said than done. Really ! “Know thyself by thyself ?”.

You need a group of friends, who can confide with each other and learn from each other.

At a minimum you need a teacher to study your behavior and provide the timely measure of recalibration.

Does my rationality need correction?

Yes of course, it is a continuous process. It happens consciously or unconsciously influenced by your strengths and weaknesses.

What was not imagined by a rational person a decade ago, happens like a routine event these days.

One should make changes to their rational self to accept activities like same sex marriages, binge movie watching, eating out, food delivery, amazon purchases, etc.  Whereas events like High school shootings, gang looting, assaults on women, misbehaving leaders show the limits to which one can rationalize things.

One should carefully analyze everything rationally and make the necessary calibration.

Rational people have the best chance to succeed in long run.

Someone may appear to have gained from an irrational activity, however in long run only rationalize activities yield lasting benefits.