On commitment
I like how this post is inspired by a quote I read on the internet. I had to stop and re-read it a couple of times, and it's actually pretty cheesy. But it kicked off an important train of thought in my head, and I wonder whether it has the potential to change how I feel about my life and important decisions that I make.
It's by Anne Morris, and apparently can be found on Starbucks cups (I found it on a website about running and vegan stuff: http://www.nomeatathlete.com/50-lessons-running-streak/). Why is this quote important? Well, it's made me double-take and wonder whether my constant internal monologue, all those minutes and hours spent thinking on my own, are actually helping me. Socrates famously said, "The unexamined life is not worth living", but does examination help me to commit, or to hesitate? Is my "head" really barring me from greater certainty and happiness?
Of course, I suspect that even if I tried to commit more in general life, I'd find myself analyzing my decisions all the same - there would be plenty of "rational hesitation" after the fact. But maybe that isn't the point. Maybe the most important thing is to stop thinking so much (and presumably to stop writing convoluted, confusing blog posts, heheh) and to just *do* things - perhaps when I look back upon my life later, I will decide that actions (and not the agonizing over them) are the things that really matter.
Here's the quote:
"The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating — in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around like rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."It's by Anne Morris, and apparently can be found on Starbucks cups (I found it on a website about running and vegan stuff: http://www.nomeatathlete.com/50-lessons-running-streak/). Why is this quote important? Well, it's made me double-take and wonder whether my constant internal monologue, all those minutes and hours spent thinking on my own, are actually helping me. Socrates famously said, "The unexamined life is not worth living", but does examination help me to commit, or to hesitate? Is my "head" really barring me from greater certainty and happiness?
Of course, I suspect that even if I tried to commit more in general life, I'd find myself analyzing my decisions all the same - there would be plenty of "rational hesitation" after the fact. But maybe that isn't the point. Maybe the most important thing is to stop thinking so much (and presumably to stop writing convoluted, confusing blog posts, heheh) and to just *do* things - perhaps when I look back upon my life later, I will decide that actions (and not the agonizing over them) are the things that really matter.
This was written a while ago, but reflects some of my thoughts today. My main considerations were whether standardisation of procedures in medicine decreases creativity and the doctor's ability to use their judgement to make decisions. Although considered from a medical perspective, in general life the question of: does routine lead to decreased creativity and variety, is similar to your musings.
ReplyDeleteThe conclusion I came to very simplistically is no - standardisation does not decrease a doctors ability to use their own experience and judgement and nor does routine impede on the creativity and variety in life.
Medicine and life are both full of a miriad of decisions that need to be made. Take it that in a day we only have a finite amount of time and so only a finite number of thought processes can occur - brain moments, as I like to call them. If we carefully consider our thought and decisions regarding repetitive, everyday procedures and things then we can get a certain number of those routine things done in a day. If however we use fewer brain moments on those repetitive procedures because we can rely on our set algorith - the standardised protocol, then we have more brain moments available in a day. This energy to carefully consider and think can then be used for those tasks and decisions that are more complicated, require careful consideration and ultimately creativity to solve. By saving energy, time and 'brain moments' on the repetitive things we can thus be more creative where it matters.
So sometimes committing without thinking too much and following the appropriate algorith may be the right thing to then liberate you to spend more time and energy contemplating the decisions that need more input.
Interesting - I think it depends whether algorithmic and creative thought are truly independent. My hunch is that each type of thinking influences the proportion, nature and intensity of the other. Having said that, I think your approach is probably a very useful one to adopt in practice - I'm sure it holds true for a lot of things, *especially* high-pressure situations.
ReplyDeleteSorry my reply isn't longer! We must discuss in person sometime. :)