Or, How to be wrong and change your mind without sacrificing your honor in the process…
Apparently in Maine they have a saying, ‘you can’t get there from here’ (spoken in a Maine accent), said when giving directions as an observation of the impossibility of traveling a direct route between certain places.”
—Cartographer, Andy Woodruff
Andy goes on to explain,
It seems to have something to do with lakes and the organization of roads in the vast rural areas of the state. To some extent it also holds true in other parts of New England.”
—Andy (cont’d)
(You can visit Andy’s site here)
Could that saying now apply more to contemporary life than driving directions in Maine?
It sure feels like it. Frequently. Sometimes every day for days at a time. Especially if you spend too much time attempting to make sense of the evening news or your social media feeds.
We’re faced with contradictions all the time, that’s nothing new.
What seems to be new is how we face up to them, or choose not to face up to them.
Have you ever read anything by Malcolm Gladwell?
His books are quite interesting, though aren’t for everyone. He writes non-fiction about how he sees the world. And he sees a lot most of us don’t even begin to notice. Then he geeks out and adds facts, figures and references to back it all up. Who does that?
I love this Gladwell quote from the September issue of Entrepreneur…
I contradict myself a lot… I’m constantly changing my mind.”
—Malcolm Gladwell
Is that something you can do? Change your mind, that is? It’s harder to do that you might think. Once I lock onto something, it’s hard to let go of it.
What about you? I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
The thing is, we are slammed from every direction with more data, more updates, more information, faster than ever before in human history. Hyper-connectivity has enabled everyone to have an opinion about everything, whether they’ve thought it through or not.
It becomes the most important duty to oneself to have a point of view and to defend it at all cost.
We see examples every day. We not only see them, too often we have to survive them.
Basecamp founder and CEO Jason Fried was quoted, quoting Jeff Bezos (got that?) in the August 2018 Inc.com article, Do You Do This Simple Thing Jeff Bezos Associates with the Smartest People? I’m guessing they couldn’t get an interview with Bezos, so they opted for someone less famous who had at least visited with him.
He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds.”
— Jason Fried
He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy – encouraged, even – to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.”
— Jason Fried
There’s that contradiction thing again.
Here are some more bits and pieces from the article to ponder…
- The smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved.
- They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.
- Not a lot of people are saying, “I was wrong, forget what I said yesterday and let’s do it differently.” Think about it, how often do you hear that? How often do you say it?
- We should be changing our minds all the time as we are constantly processing the endless stream of input?
- But we humans have become extremely uncomfortable with the thought of revising or even reframing whatever it may be that we think we know. We’re an odd lot that way.
What’s the point here? It’s simple really, but not easy…
We modern humans need to learn to learn new things and be able to change our mind about something without it being a slight to our personal honor.
If none of this encourages you to embrace mind changes and revised thinking, happiness guru Gretchen Rubin points out another reason to consider…
People who stray from their routines, try new things, explore, and experiment tend to be happier than those who don’t.”
—Gretchen Rubin
So, if you can’t let yourself be smarter, at least allow yourself to be happier!
This can be difficult to come to grips with… but we can work on it.
Do you think you can get there from here? I’m going to try… let’s give it a shot.
Be untucked.
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Let’s kick this thing around…
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