November 15, 2013

I’m excited to introduce part two of this three part series. If you have not done so already, you will want to read Learning to Read and Write: Part 1 before reading on.

The Story

Imaging you pause on your morning walk in quest of that glorious cup of miracle liquid that makes morning worth waking up for, for a street side magician. He takes your only 20 dollar bill, folds it over twice, then once more for “good luck” before cutting it in half, crumpling it up tight in his fist, and then opening his hand to offer it back to you whole and unscathed. Delighted you still have money for coffee, and somehow undaunted by this trauma which has occurred before that sweet caffeine has had a chance to hit your veins, you offer him a tip before going on your way. After buying your potable black gold from the coffee shop, you hum to yourself on the way home and check your mail. Still nothing. That’s weird, you think, I would have thought the check would be here by now. You go into the house to do a little light internet research, googling the phrase: Nigerian Prince. Thank god you had your coffee before this one!

The Trade

What’s different between these tricks though, that led us to happily part with our money in one situation, and become irate in the next? Perhaps it is the amount of money. But what if it wasn’t? What if it was a $100 ticket for a Vegas show instead, and we had only paid $100 to help the estranged prince retrieve his lost fortune? There are many differences but perhaps the most important one is perception. We perceive that the magician was acting in our interest by trying to entertain us, and the “prince” was only acting in his own interest and at our expense. Either way the money has transferred hands, and either way we were amused by the trick at the time. In fact, during the first trick we thought the trickster was taking our money, and we were relieved not to have had that happen. While the second was suppose to give us money which also didn’t happen. Shouldn’t we be more traumatized by the experience of almost losing money, than almost gaining money? It turns out the perception that the street performer exploits to create his illusion, is the same principle that prompts us to decide whether we appreciate his having done that.

Perception is the lens with which we view our options and envision our outcomes when weighing decisions. Whether they are of the conscious variety (where would I most like to vacation?), or the kind we make in an instant (I’ve slowed the car enough to safely make this right hand turn.) The latter we don’t even think about when we do it. However it is a choice none the less, variant based on circumstances (did I take that lamp out of the back seat this morning?), person history (I can still remember the accident), and personality (weeee, it feels like a rollercoaster), among other factors. If logic is the faculty by which we determine the most correct decision, perception is the faculty by which we determine the most correct decision “for me.”

Last week I wrote about a trick to change the way we read the world, which is to say, how we perceive it.  Just as these men use their tricks to make a living, so should we to better ours. The trick of turning the world upside down, looking at it with virgin eyes, and seeing what is left after stripping away engrained ideas about what we should be seeing, is really about gaining new perception.  However again, like the men before I am not interested in this trick for its own sake. I am interested in it for my sake, and so there is a particular type of perception I want to explore today in order to make my life better. That is the perception of what is easy and what is hard.

It is, to most people, clear that “easy” is better and preferable to “hard.” I believe that it is more complicated than that. The complication arises from a flawed understanding, and a flawed perspective of which things are or should be easy, and which are or should be hard.

Remember a time you have told or been told “You are making this more difficult than it needs to be.” Why was that? Like it or not, most human beings have a peculiar habit of making things difficult. For example, it’s a widely regarded practice of efficiency and effectiveness to set deadlines. Most business could not operate without them. It is not because without them otherwise lazy employees would just stand around looking at their fantasy football prospects, and using the companies high-speed internet to buy tickets before they sell out in 2 minutes (well maybe sometimes). It is because without them otherwise hardworking employees would complicate the task adding, subtracting, seconded guessing, revising, exploring redundant resources, and other “work.” Sometimes this results in a better product, report, or what-have-you, but often it does not. It just takes longer.

Now, think of a challenge you have faced, and something you have achieved. I guessing that whether it was preparing a presentation for a big client, interviewing for a new job or promotion and landing it, or teaching yourself to snowboard, it was difficult. You probably got bruises of some kind. However, without the hardship, the outcome would not have been possible. If you had not expanded your knowledge base, and just gone with what you already knew, the presentation probably would not have made the sale. Because you bullied yourself into doing something hard first, life has become easier or richer as a result.

Now these are ideas that I think people know and understand. Don’t waste time. Success comes from hard work. However, these principles need to be expanded. It would serve us well to take the time to really look at our ideas and behaviors more often, finding the times that it is not common thinking. Ask “Am I making this easy or hard, and should I be?” It is not intuitive that turning the page upside down could improve my reading. It is not so common sense that forcing my little brain to work harder, by not only using all the faculties required to interpret language, but also the additional process of mentally inverting the text piece by piece, could produce an improved result. It was much more intuitive to my mother, that physically blocking out words so my eyes and brain would be less distracted, and have an easier time processing what it saw, would help. But it did not. Most people are mostly the same. We want things to be easier. Fair enough. However we are often tricked by the indirect knowledge we are so accustomed to when we think about how to make life easier.

The trade is taking the things that are difficult and letting them be easy. The trade is taking what is easy and forcing it to be more challenging.

Without the trick of redefining how to read the world, people will do as others do and face the same difficulties, and pitfalls as they always have. However with it, you can begin to write the world the way you want it. You can perceive ideas in the way best suited to improve your life and fulfill your dreams. Allow yourself to look at the decisions you make and perspective from which you make them. Trade easy for hard, and hard for easy. Redefine easy and hard, exploit them, and see that your dreams are not so far away.

-Michael Speck