[lostalex]

Instincts are usually wrong.

for instance, when someone get's impaled on something, your first instinct is to try to remove it, but that's actually the most dangerous thing you could do. The person will bleed out and die in minutes.

when your frying pan catches fire your instinct is to throw water over it, which is the worst thing you can do. It just spreads hot oil everywhere and does nothing to put out the fire.

or even more primal, when you are angry or scared, your instinct is to lash out at the person you are angry or scared with, but violence only makes the situation worse. (the trayvon martin case recently is a good example of this)

Relying on instincts is usually a bad idea. but... we are animals, so of course we have instincts and it's hard to deny them. Telling someone to just ignore their instincts is like telling an alcoholic to just avoid alcohol, or telling a fat person to just stop eating so much. It ain't that easy.