Critical Thinking Junkie: How to Develop Critical Thinking helped me with my own critical thinking skills. The book sets it up so that it both talks about the subject and shows you practice exercises. I liked that it gave me examples on what it wanted me to do.

One of my favorite exercises it talks about is 'Kid Therapy'. I had to chuckle while reading that part as kids are sometimes impossible to talk with. One of the reasons, of course, is that they are just learning about the world. And the world is a very confusing place. I don't have kids of my own but I have friends that do. It's always a pleasure talking with them and engaging them in this exercise. The whole Batman or Superman debate tends to boil down to which one is cooler.

I've made mistakes in my life and wasted opportunities. The trick is to not be ashamed and to see how to improve. The book brings this lesson up for one of its exercises. It talks about how the exercise in the book is just supposed to be a thought experiment. What it isn't meant to do is make you feel even more regret for past actions. Part of me can't help but feel regret when doing this exercise. I've just had a lot of missed opportunities in my life. But I'm slowly getting better at this exercise.

A thing mentioned in this book is that logic is subjective. On the surface that sounds insane as there has to be only one right way of thinking about the world. There has to be only one right way to approach things. But, nope, there are many different ways to approach things. I find this useful as I'm no longer trying to think how others do, but in a way that works for me. Embracing this concept has made me feel a little better about how I do things. It has also made things much easier.

This book mentions questioning the status quo. I've always asked about why certain things are done the way they are. So this comes a little easy to me. Though I still need practice. For me it's not always about wanting to change things but just understanding where I live. Questioning the status quo does help with critical thinking as it has you thinking in new directions. Seeing the world in a different way is always fun.

The book ends with a list of other books on critical thinking. I find this helpful as it doesn't leave readers to search for themselves. Yes, a simple Google search can help but sometimes finding what you want can be tricky. I'm pretty good at using search engines but it's always helpful to have search time cut down. Especially when the goal is to learn about a topic and not how to search for it.

All in all, I found this book extremely useful. Critical thinking isn't something that you learn in a day. It's something that is used throughout your life. I'm glad to have bought this book to help me along my own journey.