choice

Dec 20 2011

The mistake you can learn from… and the mistake you can’t

We are so afraid of making mistakes!

Let me first tell you about my experience in teaching classes, then explore how not making mistakes affects us even after school is over.

Whenever I teach a class or teach a student one-on-one, my biggest obstacle is always to get them to start answering questions. And I know why. Normal school has taught us that if we can’t answer a question correctly, we shouldn’t answer at all!

Every once in a while, I’ll even have a student who has it so bad that I’m forced to reveal to them an amazing truth (it’s actually not that amazing):

You’re coming to this class because you don’t know the answer

It’s fairly obvious but it seems to have been forgotten by the students (and teachers alike). We come to the class and for some reason expect the students to give the correct answer straight away. Ridiculous. They should be expected to get it wrong at first.

However, it’s not entirely the teacher’s fault. If you’re a teacher, you’ll start off loving the job. It’s rewarding, it gives you freedom to choose the way you teach, you get feedback almost instantly… basically it has almost all the characteristics of an excellent job (except for the pay). What’s not to love?

Then after a year of having students who never put in any effort to study, you start to lose interest in trying to teach people who don’t want to learn. After 2 years, you start getting frustrated. As the years go on, you lose patience with those students who keep on giving wrong answers. That’s when you just start lumping them all together with the students who never want to study.

But there’s a fundamental truth about school. School is where you go to learn. Which, by definition, means that you don’t know yet. You can’t be angry at someone for answering a question wrong about something he’s not supposed to know yet.

Obviously, I’m talking about classes here, and not exams. Be as wrong as you like in class, and quizzes, and homework. At that point, the more important fact should be that you’re putting in the effort and learning to do things. You should be angry at someone for not putting in effort, not for getting an answer wrong.

But over the past few years, I’ve heard more and more people saying:

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

That’s all fine and well, but it starts giving people an excuse to make mistakes and screw up their life. Hey there! Wait a second… am I supporting mistakes or saying that they can screw up your life?

It turns out that there are 3 different kinds of mistakes that we can do (oh, did the title imply only 2? Oops). We should only really be allowing ourselves to make mistakes in 2. The last mistake is the one that leads us to regret.

The honest mistake

This mistake is the most basic. It’s the kind of mistake you do for trivial things, often because you simply forgot.

Mistakes like forgetting to buy the milk, or being late for an appointment because you got stuck in traffic.

These mistakes aren’t a big deal. They should be worked on though. Notice these mistakes and keep track of them. If you start noticing that you’re doing some of these mistakes over and over again, you’ll have to find a workaround that will fix it.

If you’re always forgetting appointments, get a calendar. If you’re always forgetting where you put your keys, have a designated place to put them and never put them anywhere else. If you’re always 15 minutes late to appointments, go out 15 minutes early.

But the honest mistake is the least of your worries. These mistakes aren’t usually the reason that you start to sit around with your friends wondering what you’re doing with your life.

The mistake that you can learn from

One mistake is the variety of a mistake that happens because you don’t have the skills, or you haven’t learned enough yet. These are fine and this is what is meant when they say,

Make as many mistakes as you can so you can learn from them

OR my favourite way of saying it:

Fail fast and fail often

Failing in this way is an important part of learning. You don’t learn anything from the field until you get into the field. To put it another way, you don’t know what’s important to your project until you actually start the project. If  you do know, it’s because you’ve done it before (and failed and learned from your mistakes before) or you’re smart enough to learn from someone else, whether it be a person or books.

It’s linked very strongly with perfectionist paralysis and making a fast decision. Whenever I notice myself researching too long before making a decision, I know that part of it is the fear of making a mistake. The fear of failure.

To avoid making a mistake, we spend waaayyyy too much time researching and gathering enough information rather than acting and gaining feedback about the choice on the way. Whenever I do this, it’s because I want to do the thing right. And for some reason, that means to me that if I can’t do it right, I shouldn’t do it at all.

And so I go on this endless search for more and more information. Does this sound familiar to you?

But this search can only really be satisfied once I’ve found someone who’s gone through the exact same experience that I can learn from. So what’s actually happening here is that i’m learning from their feedback from the project. Sometimes this is feasible.

At other times, the project is just too new or there’s no one that I know who’s gone through the same thing. What do you do then?

This is when you start the project anyway and learn about the project as it’s going on. Because the truth is that the only way you’ll learn about what is important in a project and what’s needed to make it successful is to go through it, whether through someone else’s experience or your own.

This is when you should make mistakes. And this is when you should learn from them.

The mistake you should never do

So what is this other mistake that you can’t learn from? This other mistake that you should never do?

The mistake that I mean here is the mistake that you make with your life choices. I lied a little. You might actually learn from a mistake made with your life choices, but more often than not, it results in regret that eats away at the soul.

In the skills mistake, no matter how many times you fail, you won’t regret it because it’s all effort being put in the right direction. You’re trying to learn a new skill and failing while learning that is fine, because the goal you have is worth it. Failing in the right direction is a good thing.

But this mistake, this mistake about your life choices, it makes you look back on it, trying to see if you could have done something about it, blaming yourself that your current life is like this due to that ONE mistake.

Here’s the thing, it’s not actually true. People like imagining that if only they were rich, or thinner, or had a job, their life would be perfect just like those people they admire (and envy and hate) because their life is oh-so-perfect. It’s not actually true since having just that one thing probably WON’T solve all their problems. But our human minds will still obsess over that one thing, that one mistake, again and again and again.

So what kind of mistake do I mean when I say mistakes about life choices?

It’s the mistakes you make when you forget your principles and go against them.

It’s the mistakes you make when you go against your core values. If you felt strongly about the environment, how would you feel if you threw trash by the side of the road because you couldn’t find a trash can nearby? I know I know, you wouldn’t. But if you did, you would remember it, the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that.

Or if you thought you were a gentleman, but you made a girl cry. That would pretty much haunt you forever. What if you wanted to be a great parent, but you missed your daughter’s school show?

These are the kinds of mistakes that can go against your core values, whatever they are, and cause regret for a long long time to come.

But the truth is that this 3rd mistake is easy to avoid. You can either set a goal and know what you want or set your parameters and know how to guide your life. Have core values. Avoid regret.

Knowing what you regret BEFORE you regret it

At this point, my words might not seem feasible. To not have regret, you have to avoid the things that would make you regret. To do that, you would first have to make a “mistake” and experience it first. That’s the only way to know what you would regret. Right?

If you’re guessing that I said wrong, then congratulations. You’re starting to figure me out.

You can figure out what you’ll regret in the same way that you can figure out what will make you passionate. Notice what you feel strongly about. When you do something, or when you hear about somebody else doing something, notice what you feel strongly about.

For example, if you feel strongly about children, then it might be best to stay away from abortions. And if you feel strongly about your religion, perhaps it’s best to stay away from the sins your religion has. Do you feel strongly about honesty? Don’t lie to friends and family (lying on surveys is usually considered ok. I’ll forgive you for that).

Here are some ways to figure out what you feel strongly about:

  1. Go out and experience life. Notice how you feel about things.
  2. Talk to friends. Hear their stories. Notice what you feel as you hear them.
  3. When meeting people, ask them their stories. People love to tell you their stories. Most of the time they’re quite interesting.  Ask why they did what they did. Ask them if they ever regretted doing [fill in the blanks here]. Again, notice if you felt strongly about any part of their stories.
  4. Read books.

I’ve honestly learnt the most about myself from listening to stories of others. It doesn’t hurt that I love stories and that I love learning about people. Especially when a senior speaks, they have so much to tell from their lives that it’s always a joy to sit and listen to what they have to say. You can’t just let them talk though.

I’ve learnt to ask the questions I want so that they tell me about what their life was like, and why they chose what they chose. I don’t know why friends of my age (25-ish) are bored listening to their elders. I love it.

By listening to them tell their tales, I can then notice the times when I have the urge to stop them and say,“No! You should have done this instead.” But you see, that was their life. That was how they wanted to live it. And now I know that if the same situation ever happened to me, I’d know which choice would feel right to me. Which choice would fit in with my core values.

Over time the picture of your core values, of your principles, becomes clearer and clearer.

Once you figure it out, making a choice becomes much easier. If a decision ever goes against any of your core values, reject that decision immediately. It’s that simple. No more thought required. The moment you go against your core values is the moment you start to regret your choices.

And when you regret that choice, you’ll learn a little something about yourself, but it’ll just be too little too late.

Don’t screw up your life. Don’t make mistakes that you’ll have no time to learn from (and even if you did, would be useless because it’s too late). Learn what would make you regret.

Then…

…DON’T make that mistake.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Reflections • 2 • Tags: , , , , , ,

Dec 10 2011

Why we love buying but hate being sold to

Did you know that making a decision yourself is more important than making a good decision?

You would think that people want to make the best choice. Turns out that’s not true. We don’t want to make the best choice, we want to make OUR choice.

Why we love buying but hate to be sold to

We love to buy. We love to feel the rush of power and the rush of satisfaction as you get the next big item that’s supposed to fix your life and make things better. After all, that’s why we buy stuff, right? We only buy something if we believe that it can make our lives easier or improve it in some way.

We buy when we believe that the things we buy can add value to our lives, whether it be a laptop or pillow or chair (yes, i’m naming random things that are around me right now). It’s supposed to make your problem go away, whether that problem is smelling bad, or thinning hair or not being able to speak in public. We buy to make ourselves feel better.

So we love to buy.

But we hate being sold to.

The moment you sense a salesperson is selling to you just because he wants to make a sale, you immediately back off. You start saying NO. It’s because when you feel “sold to”, it feels like he “won” and you “lost”. It feels like the salesperson manipulated you and tricked you into buying something that you didn’t want or need.

It feels icky. It feels like you can’t trust the person. Now, if you can’t trust the person, how can you trust the product he’s selling?

We often and we always associate things. We look at an object and feel like it’s important to us, not because it actually has value, but because it has an emotion that we associated with it.

It’s like in The Little Prince when he says that his rose is special, not because it is special in itself, but because caring for it all these years and being close to it has made it special. When you attach emotion to your teddy bear, it becomes valuable to you, but only because you gave it value.

“You’re lovely, but you’re empty,” he went on.

“One couldn’t die for you. Of course an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than you altogether, since she’s the one I’ve watered. Since she’s the one I put under glass. Since she’s the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she’s the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except for two or three for butterflies). Since’s she the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she’s my rose.”

– “The Little Prince” By Antoine De Saint-Exupe’ry

So these products you buy from Mr. Person-you-can’t-trust will also just leave you hanging because you attach the idea of distrust to his products. You don’t trust his product to solve your problems either.

So here’s the thing; even if that product actually was the best product to solve your needs, you still might not buy it anyway.

We hate being sold to.

But there are other examples of when we’ll make bad decisions just because we don’t want to follow someone’s orders.

Why we’ll stop when someone tells us to do what we’re already doing

Has this ever happened to you? You were just about to do something when someone suddenly told you to do exactly what you were about to do anyway. Don’t you feel a sudden urge to just stop? It’s just like being a teenager all over again when your parent told you to do something and you’d go against them just because you didn’t want to do what they said.

It’s honestly a little ridiculous. You were about to do it anyway. You were going to do it for your own reasons to benefit yourself. But then they told you to do it and now you JUST… CANT… DO IT!

You can’t show them that they own you and that you’ll do what they say. It’s worse when it’s someone you hate. Then you’ll just start doing the exact opposite of whatever it is they say.

Sometimes, you’ll even go out of your way and do something that’s bad for yourself just to prove them wrong. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Unfortunately, it’s normal. It’s the basis behind the whole idea of reverse psychology.

The story goes that Winston Churchill would convince others that an idea he had given them had actually been an idea they had come up with in the first place, in order to make sure that it was implemented.

A man may do an immense deal of good, if he does not care who gets the credit for it.

– Father Strickland, 1863

Would you prefer to make people believe that it was your idea at the risk of not having people implement such a great idea? Or would you rather go Churchill’s route and make people believe it was their own decision so that they would freely implement it? The truly great ideas need to be spread out so that people buy into the idea and make it their own. One of the greatest winning movements of this generation is the environmental movement.

People have joined this movement not because it was someone else’s good idea, but because they felt it was their own idea to go out and help save the world. But we still might stop if someone told us to do what we wanted to do anyway.

So the question that pops up is why do we stop?

We stop because when we make a choice… we want to be sincere.

Let’s deal with the idea of sincerity later on. Before that, let’s look at teenagers.

Why teenagers rebel

When we’re children, we’re at a stage where we fully trust our parents and trust them to make all our decisions. In fact, we usually feel so strongly attached to our mom or dad that we define ourselves through them. We don’t really have a strong self-identity yet.

But as we grow, parents, peers and society tell us and teach us that we need to make our own decisions and that we need to be responsible for our own life. So we tentatively try it out. We try to make our own decisions.

However, we’re still young at the time, and still not fully able to make decisions properly, so our parents always try to guide us and tell us what to do. At that point, a choice appears; do you follow the decision of your parents or do you make your own decision? Also, what happens when you both decide the same thing? Unfortunately, there’s no option there that says you can both come to the same decision because the very definition of it being your parents’ choice means that it’s not yours.

So we rebel.

Oh, not always, but we rebel. Whenever our parents tell us to do something, we feel like it limits our ability to grow into adults and make our own choices. The only way to feel like we are living our own lives instead of someone else’s is to rebel against our parents’ decisions.

So we have a dilemma. People tell us that teenagers should start to “grow up” and be more responsible. The meaning of responsible means that we should be responsible for our own decisions. And how can that happen when adults keep telling teenagers what to do?

Teenagers rebel because they don’t know their own identity. Yet.

Identity is the reason

Identity is the reason for all these things we do. Or, more accurately, the idea that we want to have a solid understanding of who we are and what our choices are.

When you make a choice, something happens. You start believing that you own that choice. That it’s part of you. That it’s part of your identity.

Yes, our minds are pretty easy to trick. In fact, we deceive ourselves all the time. In this particular case, because we’ve made the choice ourselves, we cling to it as part of us. If somebody tries telling you that you shouldn’t buy something that you want, or that something you bought isn’t good, you’ll feel at least a little bit insulted. WHY?

You feel like they insulted your choice and taste in products. You’ve actually attached your emotions onto this choice. In fact, you’ve attached yourself to that choice. That choice now defines part of who you are. And so, you want to make that choice yourself, because you want to define your identity by yourself.

What happens when you do what someone tells you? It’s as if someone is choosing your identity for you. Someone is deciding who you are for you. And that’s just wrong. Or at least, that’s how you feel.

So when you’re still at the stage where your self-image is fuzzy, like most of us are, you can’t take any chances with your identity. When you haven’t figured out who you are, you don’t want someone else to decide for you. When you haven’t found yourself or chosen who to be, you can’t let someone else decide for you.

Let’s get back to the teenagers we were talking about before.

When teenagers are entering their teenage years, they’re still testing the waters of their own identity. They’re still figuring out how to make a decision and whether they will actually like that decision; that is, whether that decision fits in with who they want to be. And normally, they won’t know if they like it until after they make the decision.

But what happens when your parents tell you what to do (even if it’s the best decision), is that even if you like it, it’s still not your own decision, so it’s not really part of you yet. Because of that, the only way to make sure that it’s your own personal decision is to do the exact opposite of what your parents tell you to do.

I know, it’s weird and twisted. But us humans are built that way.

Let’s move on to the idea of sincerity.

It’s also about Sincerity

As humans with relationships, we really really feel that sincerity is important. We always want to be ourselves. And when our self-image is fuzzy, it’s always best to remove all doubt. It’s that moment when you want to do something for a noble reason like love or gratitude, then one second later, your doubt kicks in and you start wondering whether you’re doing this because YOU want to or because someone ELSE told you to.

To remove that doubt, we immediately say no.

Imagine a country that was still in a time of war, where its borders were fluid and changed every day, to the point where even the leaders of the country are fuzzy about where the line is on the map. That country is you and the border is the border between your own self-image of your own choices and the influence of other people in your life.

When your border is fuzzy, the moment an influence (invasion) comes anywhere near your borders, you HAVE to push it back. You can’t accept anything nearby because you don’t know where your border is either. To be on the safe side, and to make sure that the influence didn’t cross your borders and get into your mind, it’s easier to reject all possible action that might come of it.

But what if the country were at peace? What if the border was clearly defined on a map? Then, wouldn’t you be able to place a proper immigration control at the borders? Any time an influence came near the borders, it would be fine. You could watch it from your side of the fence as it came closer. And closer and closer.

When it reaches your border fence, you can calmly allow it entrance to your country, but only under your conditions.

When you know exactly what entered your mind from outside, then you know exactly which thoughts are yours and which are from others. That way, you can always be sure that you are sincere when it’s your own thoughts that lead you to a decision.

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

– Aristotle

This is when you can take peoples’ influence, advice, peer pressure, social hype, etc, and stop it at the borders of your mind, extracting from it only the information that you find useful.

Did you know that right now I’m influencing you too? I’m trying to get you to see my perspective. If you can allow my words into your mind, and still feel calm and assured that YOU are still in control, then congrats; that’s exactly the feeling I’m trying to explain. It’s the same feeling I want you to have every time you feel pressured to do something. You are in control and you can reject or accept my words however you like.

Now, this might be easier to do in a low-pressure situation where I’m not actively or rudely pushing myself on you. The question is, could you cultivate yourself so that even if somebody is rudely or aggressively trying to convince or pressure you into something; you could still calmly choose with your own mind instead of automatically pushing back (or giving in)?

You can.

But it means you have to define the borders of your self first. You have to define who you are. This is slightly different from finding yourself or finding your life purpose. You often can’t do that until you stumble upon that one thing you can do that really makes you passionate. Defining yourself is more of defining the ground rules for what you feel are important in life and what you would most regret.

Don’t give yourself reasons to regret.

(I’ll deal with avoiding regret later in a post called [The mistake you can learn from and the mistake you can't] which I’ll post by the end of next week. This post seems to be long enough.)

Conclusion

The idea here, is that you want to be able to accept ideas from others and integrate them into yourself without feeling that you compromised your borders. We hate being sold to, and that includes selling us ideas, but that only makes sense if you forget that ultimately you have the power to decide to buy.

Remember that you always have the power to buy into any idea that comes your way no matter how much someone tries to sell you on it.

Nowadays, every time someone advises me or tells me what to do, I take it as just that; advice. If I follow it, it’s because I chose to do so.

If you can always choose to buy (or not buy) no matter how much pressure is pushed on you, then you will always make your own decision. And I hope that at that time, you can also freely make the best decision.

Make the best decision for yourself, no matter if it comes from you… or from someone else.

By Lutfi Torla • Featured, Understanding Behaviour • 4 • Tags: , , , , ,

Oct 3 2011

Should you hide your flaws?

Face the fact. We aren’t perfect. Humans can’t be perfect and we realize that. However, sometimes we don’t seem to accept the consequences of not being perfect.  It means we will make mistakes. There’s no if about it. It’s a certainty.

But should we publish them? Should we let others know of our mistakes? After all, it would be dishonest of us to hide all our flaws and show people our good side. And nowadays, it’s cool to rebel and tell people of what you did… right?

Don’t be proud of your mistakes! Hide them and be ashamed.

Hiding your own flaws

You don’t need to show your true self. In fact, you should hide your bad parts. Be ashamed. Don’t be proud. The day you’re proud of your flaws is the day you aren’t even trying to get back on the right path anymore.

In fact, go further! Preach against your own mistakes. Tell other people who are doing it that they shouldn’t. It matters not that you’ve done the same. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite, it makes you a person who cares enough to make sure others don’t repeat the same mistake.

There’s an interesting effect of preaching against your own mistakes. Rather than make you sound like a person who’s holier-than-thou (showing off how good you are), the message actually comes out stronger because you can relate better to that person. You can understand his motivations and his thought process much better. It means you can actually tackle his problems at the right place to solve his problem in a better way.

Hiding the flaws of others

You should also hide the flaws of your fellow Muslims. I’m sure you’ve heard it before:

He who covers a Muslim (his mistakes and shortcomings), Allah will cover him in the Dunya and
the Hereafter.

- [Sahih Bukhari]

Projecting a good image

The flip-side of hiding your flaws is that now you’re forced to show only your good side. People generally have a problem with this because they don’t like living a lie. You start having this feeling that what others think of you is false, that you’re not that good and don’t deserve that image. I feel that this is good on 2 counts, both on how it affects you and how it affects others.

First of all, behaviour affects your mindset. It’s not just your thoughts that affect your actions, but also your actions that affect your thoughts. They did a study where they put 2 groups of people to watch the same person. Group A watched him while sitting in a relaxed position while group B watched him while having their arms crossed in front of them (classic disagreeing position). At the end of the test, they surveyed the 2 groups and found those who had crossed their arms had a much higher percentage of disagreeing with the speaker. After doing this a couple of times with multiple groups, they concluded that our posture and our actions affect our thoughts too, not just the other way around.

It makes sense. Now that you’re forced to “act” good all the time around people, at one point you’ll be “acting” good most of the time. Once you’re in the habit, you’ll “act” good all the time. If someone is “acting” good 24/7 for the rest of their life, can you really count that as an “act”? And little by little, it does affect your thought process.

Second, it’s also a good influence on others. No matter how hypocritical you feel, people will only know the image you project. If enough people in society project the same good behaviour, it will be considered the normal behaviour for everyone. The environment that you are in will then be a culture of being kind and just and trustworthy, simply because everyone is that way.

When you’re online

It’s even more important nowadays with our speed of communication and how we interact online. Assuming that everyone has an online presence (no matter how small), how would you like that presence to represent you? Have you ever googled yourself?

When communication is this fast, there’s a tendency to press “Send” before thinking things through. Look at all the comments we have on forums and on youtube.

The lines also get blurred between private and public communication. I’m sure you’ve seen people sending what seems to a private message and posting on another person’s facebook wall? It happens all the time on Twitter too.

Keeping these things in mind, it’s probably best to start worrying about your image online as well. Nowadays, you have potential employers googling you, current employers facebooking you and colleagues or clients checking online to see who you are and what you’re worth. It’s high time to start worrying about how you look online as well as offline.

Your reputation

I think that in the end, your reputation is something that is important and that you need to maintain. It isn’t evil or even bad to want to protect your image. Rather it is a natural reflex and a good reflex. It shows that you are still ashamed and understand that your mistake is not something to be proud of and flaunted to the world.

My entire nation is safe, except al-Mujahirin (those who boast of their sins). Among the Mujaharah is that a man commits an (evil) act, and wakes up in the morning while Allah has kept his (sin) a secret, he says: “O Fulan! Last night I did this and that.” He goes to sleep while Allah has kept his (sin) a secret but he wakes up in the morning and uncovers what Allah has kept a secret!

- [Sahih Bukhari]

That feeling you have of wanting to hide your flaws and make yourself look good in front of others? It’s not wrong to feel that way. That is, as long as you stick to the truth…

————————————————————————————-

P.S. I couldn’t find words for this. It’s been on the back burner for quite a while. The date on my drafts here says July 2011!

By Lutfi Torla • Life Hacks • 0 • Tags: , , ,

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