The critical part of thinking

"Critical thinking includes the ability to respond to material by distinguishing between facts and opinions or personal feelings, judgments and inferences, inductive and deductive arguments, and the objective and subjective. It also includes the ability to generate questions, construct, and recognize the structure of arguments, and adequately support arguments; define, analyze, and devise solutions for problems and issues; sort, organize, classify, correlate, and analyze materials and data; integrate information and see relationships; evaluate information, materials, and data by drawing inferences, arriving at reasonable and informed conclusions, applying understanding and knowledge to new and different problems, developing rational and reasonable interpretations, suspending beliefs and remaining open to new information, methods, cultural systems, values and beliefs and by assimilating information."
MCC General Education Initiatives

This sums up what critical thinking is to me. It is analyzing all sides, perspectives and working to understand them. Then you see problems and solutions that can be explored with greater care and understanding. What is real to you is real, but some one else’s reality is important to look into and the information you gain by considering it is more valuable because of it. New strides can be taken if critical thinking is applied to every situation.