Why do adults stop thinking deeply? (6th grade, Nagano)

Sometimes deep thinking makes life harder

This question made me go, “Oh no, that’s so true!”

I think one reason adults — or people who are no longer little children, like high school students who can make many decisions for themselves — sometimes stop thinking deeply is this: when you think deeply, other people may say you are “too much,” or it may become harder to live your life.

When I was in high school, I did not understand why women were expected to wear makeup when they went to work. I wanted to talk about this with my friends, but they seemed to think I was just being annoying. So I could not easily find anyone to discuss these questions with. If I had been working at a company and had asked my boss, “Why are only women expected to wear makeup?” my boss might have thought, “This employee is hard to deal with,” and I might even have been fired.

In this way, thinking deeply can come with a cost. A “cost” here means that even if something is good, you may lose other things because of it. So, in some ways, it is easier to live without thinking deeply. Thinking deeply and trying to live your life sincerely is really difficult.

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なぜ、大人は、深く考えるのをやめてしまうのですか。(長野県、小６）

生きにくくなることも

読んで思わず「ぎくっ！」としてしまう問いだ。私は、大人や、子どもではない人（例えば、十分に自分でいろいろな判断ができる高校生）が深く考えるのをやめてしまう理由の一つには、深く考えるとめんどうくさい人扱いされたり、生きにくくなったりすることがあると思う。私は高校生の時に、なぜ女性はメイクをして会社に行かないといけないのか理由がわからなかった。そのことについて周りの友達と議論したかったのだけど、めんどうくさいと思われたようで、話す相手がなかなか見つからなかった。もし私が会社員で、上司に「メイクはなぜ女性だけに求められるのですか」と聞いていたら、「扱いにくい社員だな」と思われてクビになっていたかもしれない。このように、深く考えるということには、代価（良いことの代わりに損をすること）がついてくる。だから深く考えずに生きるほうが楽だと言えば、楽だ。深く考えて、人生を「ちゃんと」生きることは本当に難しい。