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The need for closure is not cool.

Writer's picture: Dr. Aloisious Z. MushayandebvuDr. Aloisious Z. Mushayandebvu

Updated: Sep 1, 2024

Context

For many years, scholars and experts from the cognitive psychology paradigm have peddled the concept of the need for closure. Closure concerns decision making to arrive at answers that alleviate confusion and ambiguity. The concept of a need for closure is commonly evoked in situations of conflict and problem resolution.

 

Status Quo

I learnt that stress and strain increase the need for closure. I have always assumed that there was unquestionable merit in looking for and or helping others to attain quod erat demonstrandum (QED) moments (Latin, when or where the puzzles are assembled to satisfaction so that as it were, one could move on). QED occasions, are blissful moments where “that which was to be demonstrated or proved, has been demonstrated”. QED moments are the sought-after moments of clarity.

 

AHA Moment

I have realised that the merits of the need for closure are grossly overrated. Efforts to facilitate the need for closure feed a self-serving motive to maintain our identities and promote semblances of order when things have changed. I now recognise that it can be harmful to stop people from questioning themselves or indeed oneself - in particular, their judgements, skills, and abilities on the assumption that these instinctive reactions dis-empowers them and induce distress. The processes we go through or are subjected to in pursuit of the need for closure provide palliative answers that validate our existing and possibly incorrect or obsolete world views. That is risky.

 

Consequences

The unqualified pursuit for closure or being driven by the sheer need for closure breeds stagnation, inflexibility and or non-adaptiveness and, contrary to expectation, diminishes “moving on”. You miss the boat or get swept by the storm whilst you wait for the rarity that QED moments are.

 

Resolution

I am here to say that the unbridled quest for closure, contrary to popular thinking and practice, induces strain and can invite self-delusion that undermines due personal and organisational adaptations. When you encounter distressing life challenges, you should not be driven to seek closure. Instead, you should fully live the experience and learn from the conflicts and ambiguities. In particular, you should avoid definitive closure. Be wary of premature closure.

 

Being personally in charge has limited virtues. There is merit in "swinging with the flow" whilst recognising the emotions you experience when faced with conflicts and challenges, and through engaging them responsively and responsibly. I am talking about living with ambiguity when a closure is beyond your control. You do not need closure to move on. Live with and through vagueness and contradictions. I am talking about a redemptive letting go. For everything, there is a season.

 

Enjoy and capitalise on the opportunities presented by uncertainty. Life is an inquiry and we can and must learn from our lived events. Reality is captured in the given broad environment and time-space. It is made up of controllable and uncontrollable features. There are those things that objectively and or subjectively you can take personal responsibility and culpability for. They are what they are. Life is too beautiful a gift to miss whilst waiting for closure. Blessed are they, who inherently avoid closure at all costs.


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