the crisis of love

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There is a true story of a little boy whose sister needed a blood transfusion. The doctor explained that she had the same disease the boy had recovered from two years earlier. Her only chance of recovery was a transfusion from someone who had previously conquered the disease. Since the two children had the same rare blood type, the boy was an ideal donor.

“Would you give your blood to Mary?” the doctor asked.

Johnny hesitated. His lower lip started to tremble. Then he smiled and said, “Sure, for my sister.”

Soon the two children were wheeled into the hospital room. Mary, pale and thin. Johnny, robust and healthy. Neither spoke, but when their eyes met, Johnny grinned.

As the nurse inserted the needle into his arm, Johnny’s smile faded. He watched the blood flow through the tube.

With the ordeal almost over, Johnny’s voice, slightly shaky, broke the silence.

“Doctor, when do I die?”

Only then did the doctor realize why Johnny had hesitated, why his lip had trembled when he agreed to donate his blood. He thought giving his blood to his sister would mean giving up his life. In that brief moment, he had made his great decision. Johnny faced a “crisis of love”. He won the test and experienced love at the deepest level.

David Needham, Close to His Majesty

Data doesn’t say anything. Humans say things.

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Data is not a perfect representation of reality: It’s a fundamentally human construct, and therefore subject to biases, limitations, and other meaningful and consequential imperfections.  

The clearest expression of this misunderstanding is the question heard from boardrooms to classrooms when well-meaning people try to get to the bottom of tricky issues:  “What does the data say?”  

Data doesn’t say anything. Humans say things. 

They say what they notice or look for in data—data that only exists in the first place because humans chose to collect it, and they collected it using human-made tools. Data can’t say anything about an issue any more than a hammer can build a house or almond meal can make a macaron. Data is a necessary ingredient in discovery, but you need a human to select it, shape it, and then turn it into an insight.  Data is therefore only as useful as its quality and the skills of the person wielding it.   

Andrea Jones-Rooy writing in Quartz   

Here’s how you can tell who will do well in College 

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The best predictor of who will do well in college is not how smart the student is but their understanding of intelligence: Is it something the student puts on display or is it something that changes with learning?

Many first-year college students are settling into their dorms and getting ready for classes this week. I like to show my students a news story I wrote in graduate school covered in red marks. When that paper was returned to me, I could have said to myself, "I can't do this" or I could adjust, trying different strategies and working out what I needed to do to improve. The first attitude assumes either I can do it or I can't. If you can, you do it immediately. You show your intellegence. The second attitude assumes success is a matter of approach and persistence. You have to ask what might be perceived as dumb questions until you figure it out. When I wrote that paper covered in red marks (and there were many of them) I had no idea I was just a few years away from working at a national news network where writing would be a central part of my job. 

Stephen Goforth  

Showing Initiative

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Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done. 

Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Your Greater Goal

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We often imagine that we generally operate by some kind of plan, that we have goals we are trying to reach. But we’re usually fooling ourselves; what we have are not goals but wishes. Our emotions infect us with hazy desire; we want fame, success, security – something large and abstract. 

Clear long-term objectives give direction to all of your actions, large and small. Important decisions became easier to make. If some glittering prospect threatens to seduce you from your goal, you will know to resist it You can tell when to sacrifice a pawn, even lose a battle, if it serves your eventual purpose.   

Robert Greene, 33 Strategies of War

Real Love and Fidelity

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It may be said that fidelity secures itself against unfaithfulness by becoming accustomed not to separate desire from love. For if desire travels swiftly and anywhere, love is slow and difficult; love actually does pledge one for the rest of one’s life, and it exacts nothing less than this pledge in order to disclose its real nature. That is why a man who believes in marriage can no longer believe seriously in ‘love at first sight’, still less in the ‘irresistible’ nature of passion…which is an alibi invoked by the guilty.   

Denis de Rougemont, Love in the Western World 

I can’t and I don’t 

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Every time you tell yourself “I can't”, you're creating a feedback loop that is a reminder of your limitations. This terminology indicates that you're forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do.

In comparison, when you tell yourself “I don't”, you're creating a feedback loop that reminds you of your control and power over the situation. It's a phrase that can propel you towards breaking your bad habits and following your good ones.

“I can't” and “I don't” are words that seem similar and we often interchange them for one another, but psychologically they can provide very different feedback and, ultimately, result in very different actions. They aren't just words and phrases. They are affirmations of what you believe, reasons for why you do what you do, and reminders of where you want to go.

The ability to overcome temptation and effectively say no is critical not only to your physical health, but also to maintaining a sense of well–being and control in your mental health.

To put it simply: you can either be the victim of your words or the architect of them. Which one would you prefer?

James Clear 

 

Proactive Language

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There’s nothing I can do.. Let’s look at our alternatives.
That’s just the way I am.. I can choose a different approach.
He makes me so mad.. I control my own feelings.
They won’t allow that.. I can create an effective presentation.
I have to do that..I will choose an appropriate response.
I can’t..I choose.
I must.. I prefer.
If only.. I will.

A serious problem with reactive language is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become reinforced in the paradigm that they are determined, and they produce evidence to support the belief. They feel out of control, not in charge of their life or their destiny. They blame outside forces - other people, circumstances, even the stars - for their own situation.

Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Death Ground

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You are your own worst enemy. You waste precious time dreaming of the future instead of engaging in the present. Since nothing seems urgent to you, you are only half involved in what you do. The only way to change is through action and outside pressures. Put yourself in situations where you have too much at stake to waste time or resources – if you cannot afford to lose, you won’t. Cut your ties to the past; enter unknown territory where you must depend on your wits and energy to see you through. Place yourself on “death ground,” where you back is against the wall and you have to fight like hell to get out alive. 

Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

Motivated Reasoning 

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When we identify too strongly with a deeply held belief, idea, or outcome, a plethora of cognitive biases can rear their ugly heads. Take confirmation bias, for example. This is our inclination to eagerly accept any information that confirms our opinion, and undervalue anything that contradicts it. It’s remarkably easy to spot in other people (especially those you don’t agree with politically), but extremely hard to spot in ourselves because the biasing happens unconsciously. But it’s always there. 

Criminal cases where jurors unconsciously ignore exonerating evidence and send an innocent person to jail because of a bad experience with someone of the defendant’s demographic. The growing inability to hear alternative arguments in good faith from other parts of the political spectrum. Conspiracy theorists swallowing any unconventional belief they can get their hands 

We all have some deeply held belief that immediately puts us on the defensive. Defensiveness doesn’t mean that belief is actually incorrect. But it does mean we’re vulnerable to bad reasoning around it. And if you can learn to identify the emotional warning signs in yourself, you stand a better chance of evaluating the other side’s evidence or arguments more objectively.

Liv Boeree writing in Vox