As I go through life walking on a tight rope, I write in my journal, and share a few of the entries here- sometimes personal, sometimes intense, sometimes stupid, occasionally funny…but honest nonetheless
So I just finished reading The Element by Sir Ken Robinson, and ended up taking some notes, as usual. Thought I'd put them up here. Again, they are personal notes, focused on what I personally found relevant to myself- to get a full picture of the book, I'd encourage you to read it yourself.
...On Practice — your Secret Treasure, and the Power of having a Growth Mindset
Circa 2004, my 8 year old self went up on stage and performed a bunch of monologues from Harry Potter, all by myself. I had never performed on stage alone before. I knew nothing about acting. The thought of going up on stage would give me chills. I would start shaking whenever I had to say something in front of an audience. I was introverted, shy, and didn’t like attention- clearly not the kind of kid who you’d imagine would get into acting. But I did…
I’m currently reading The Art of People, by Dave Kerpen and I highly recommend it! There’s a section in the book which talks about how to ‘get’ people. ‘I just don’t get him’ — how often have we heard that?
But it’s important to ‘get’ people. ‘The first step in influencing people is understanding them’…
I had falafel on rice for lunch today- it was amazing, as always. I go to this halal guy every weekend. He recognizes me now.
He is from Turkey- he and his brother came to the states and set up a small Halal cart chain with six carts in Upper West Side. I have been eating from a lot of Halal carts across the city during my stay in New York, but I have to say that this fellow is by far the best I’ve come across- not because his food is the best, but because of the love and respect with which he treats his customers, and the energy and passion with which he does his job.
To do the dishes now or to put them off till later. To make the bed first thing in the morning or to put it off till the night. To have salad or a burger for lunch. To workout or laze around. To watch TV or to go out and meet new people. To meditate or to excuse yourself for one day because you're tired/sleepy/have had a long day...
...To do the right thing or not to...
I've realized that life is all about these small decisions that we make everyday. This is what decides how your life will turn out. People often worry about or think too much about the big decisions or the big goals that they have in life. I think that life determined more by these small things. Once you start making the right choices about the small things, the big things start falling into place.
It's often these small things that are harder to achieve. Make your bed first thing every morning. Meditate everyday, no excuses. Workout. Read. Meet new people. It won't kill you if you don't catch the latest GoT episode for once.
I’m currently reading ‘The Little Prince’ (‘Le Petit Prince’ in French), by Antoine De Saint Exupery. The narrator starts by telling a story from his childhood when he was 6 years old. He talks about a time when he drew the following picture:
and asked the ‘grown ups’ if his drawing scared them. They answered, ‘Why be scared of a hat?’ He then tells the reader that his drawing was not a picture of a hat.
‘It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so the grown-ups could understand. They always need explanations. My drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grow-ups advised me to put away my drawings of boa constrictors, outside or inside, and apply myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar.
The ‘grown-ups’ failed to see the boa constrictor- they only saw the hat. They failed to realize that a simple seemingly hat-shaped brown structure could represent a zillion different things. There are multiple ways to see the same problem, or, in this case, the same drawing. Yet all they could see was the hat. And when they were shown a more explicit drawing, they dismissed it, perhaps thinking it was ridiculous. But no, it’s not that ridiculous. What’s ridiculous is when you don’t use your imagination.
Today, in trying to solve the world’s most pressing and challenging problems, we need to be able to see things in different ways. To go beyond what is obvious and visible. To imagine all the possibilities. Not just to come up with innovative solutions but more importantly, to first be able to correctly identify the problem, and be able to look at it in different ways. In trying to come up with new ideas to solve a problem or design a new feature for a product, a lot of people engage in ‘brainstorming sessions’, where you typically sit in groups, perhaps with a whiteboard, and try to come up with as many solutions as possible for solving the problem, which is great for generating new ideas. But I think before that, it’s important to spend time with the problem. As Albert Einstein once said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
‘The Slow Elevator Problem’…
Now, imagine you’re a landlord of an office building in New York in the 1930s. And the employees in the office complain to you that the elevators are slow in the building, and threaten to leave if nothing is done about it. Now this is a serious problem, you could end up losing your tenants if you don’t fix it. You’ll probably call your team of engineers and get them to come up with possible solutions to make elevators faster. But that’s not what this one particular landlord did when faced with the same problem.
You might think that the problem is that the elevators are slow, and the landlord should get better machines and make them faster. But is that really the problem? Or rather, is that the only way of looking at the problem?
Here are some other possible perspectives:
a)The tenants are not good because they complain a lot, so they should be fired.
b)The threat of leaving is the problem- if the landlord offers the tenants something else in return for not complaining/threatening to leave, it may solve the landlord’s problem
c)Or…The tenants don’t like to wait for the elevators. It’s the waiting, and the boredom that comes with having nothing to do while waiting, that’s the problem.
This is exactly how the landlord saw the problem. So he decided to install mirrors in the elevator waiting areas, to give people something to engage themselves with (admiring themselves in the mirror), whilst they waited for the elevators. And it actually worked. The installation of mirrors was made quickly and at a relatively low cost. The complaints about waiting stopped.Today, if you’ve noticed, it’s fairly commonplace to have mirrors outside elevators. And that, is how this practice started.
Again, what looks like a hat may not be a hat, it may be a boa constrictor digesting an elephant! If we have a hammer, we tend to see everything as a nail, but it may not be a nail, it may be a hole in the wall, or a leak in the pipe, or any one of a hundred and forty six other things. We need to open our minds to see things differently. To go beyond the obvious. To use our creativity to think of different approaches and perspectives to the problem at hand. Had the landlord tried to make elevators faster, he would have ended up spending much more money and resources, but all he did was install mirrors and the problem was solved.
Lesson: Don’t try to build faster elevators. Use your imagination to get to the root of the problem before trying to fix it.
*This post was originally published on uydmedia on November 6, 2015...
“All of humanity’s problems, stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
~ Blaise Pascal.
In today’s hyperconnected world, most of us tend to dread the thought of being alone with ourselves. We find it so hard to let go of technology and other people. In the past, people used to spend time with themselves at least in the mornings- now, we have someone to talk to even in the toilet. No, this is not a rant about how technology is taking over our lives, there are plenty of those already. What I instead want to draw your attention to, dear reader, is solitude.
First, let’s define what we mean by solitude. Sitting alone in a room checking your phone is not solitude, even if you’re reading the news. Solitude is different from being alone. Being alone is when you are with no one else. Solitude is when you are with yourself. It’s a subtle difference, but very important to understand.
But most of us never experience this kind of solitude, we are always talking and listening to people. There are so many voices which we are forced to hear. More often than not, these voices impact our decisions. ‘This guy said this job is amazing, therefore I must pursue it.’ ‘He said this professor’s class is an easy A, so it must be.’ ‘Someone else said it’s hard- what should I do?’ ‘All my friends are dating- why am I single?’ These are all thoughts which go through people’s minds. But notice one thing. They are all results of other people’s thoughts. Furthermore, people also keep providing us with unsolicited remarks of what they think of us- Someone who needs your help that day may tell you that you’re really smart. The next person may say you’re a nutcase. A salesman says you look pretty, your gym trainer says you’re really fat. This keeps happening on a daily basis. Our minds keep accumulating these often contradictory statements. That is why we find ourselves unsure of who we truly are. If there is so much noise outside from so many voices, how will we hear our inner voice?
Even the decisions we make often tend to be the results of other people’s thinking and not our own. The image we have of ourselves tends to get shaped by what other people say about us. And this keeps changing, because people are fickle, and their remarks keep changing. It’s like looking at different kinds of mirrors – none of which show you who you really are. Our true self gets enshrouded in the accumulation of all the external noise, our inner voice gets buried deep within. We must break away from all of that, even if for a little while, in order to get to know who we are. In the silence that comes with solitude, we will be able to look within and hear our inner voice. That, dear reader, is why solitude is important.
But to be in solitude is difficult. We will have to know ourselves in our nudity. We have to ask uncomfortable questions. We have to dig deep into ourselves. That is why we often start doing something when we find ourselves alone. We shy away from asking who we really are. We don’t want to go down the unexplored road. We want to keep believing in this version of ourselves which has been created by the labels of society. It has become our identity- and we do not want to strip it down. But we must. For only then will we uncover our soul. Only then will we see the real person inside us. Only then will we hear our own voices and not of the demons that have been fabricated by our minds as a result of what others have told us.
Ruth Krauss, the famous American writer, wrote “Everybody should be quiet near a little stream and listen.” To be in solitude, disconnect from everything and everyone, sit down, and listen. Listen to the internal noise- thoughts of the past, the future, things you had to get done, emails to be responded to, and all else. Listen to these thoughts and let them pass like clouds over a mountain. Eventually, you will find your peace, and you will be able to see the real color of the stream that flows within, and hear the voices of your soul.
