One of the things that I did during my time in between jobs was sign up for different courses. One I am still working on revolves around conflict mediation, also known as Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR).
The first thing I learned that every mediator needed to aspire to be three things; Lazy, Dumb and Homeless.
Lazy, because a mediator must let the participants do the talking and basically sit back and let them take it as far as they can. As long as they are talking, there is progress.
Dumb, because making assumptions is often what got the opposing parties in their predicament in the first place.
Homeless, because a mediator can belong to no one.
I thought this was inmensely interesting, completely logical and also incredibly difficult.
It prompted me to rewatch a short vid I once saw in which Simon Sinek speaks about how allowing yourself to be viewed as “the stupidest in the room” can be an important skill (and a precious gift for all the other people in the room).
Check out the video below for context (no more than two minutes).
So, it’s not only about recognizing when things are being discussed that you don’t understand, but also having the balls to say so. Even though you may lose some street cred or be considered “the idiot” by some, you will also be doing a lot of people a favor. Especially when there are people present who do have a reputation to protect, your “stupidity” will provide them with “the for dummies explanation”. They may also have needed and wanted it, but were not willing or able to admit it.
This also reminds me of my 16th century compatriot Erasmus’ book “In Praise of Folly”. What I know of this book comes merely from what I remember from the high school history lessons I had. I have never actually read it. What makes this book interesting is that Erasmus does something in it that was unthinkable for that time: namely criticizing politics, church and society. He gets a way with this by letting a jouster be the one to ask the painful questions everybody is wondering about but dares not utter.
So, start practicing your cartwheel and be the fool we all need!
This post is about doubt, about truth, about facts and our reliance on them.
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
One of my favorite books of all times is Life of Pi, which is basically 400 pages of inner musings of a very contemplative kid.
It is a story about a boy surviving a shipwreck and dealing with his trauma by befriending it. Pi’s inquisitive nature and innocent mind investigate religion in a such an open-minded way, that it opened my mind towards the spiritual realm more than any cleric ever could.
During a conversation Pi had with a fervent atheist, he came to the conclusion that this conviction was not for him, but he did respect the thought process behind it. He understood that atheists were thinkers as well, which was something he could appreciate. He concluded that agnostics were the ones furthest away from the truth, as they accepted the idea that anything could be possible, while at the same time doubting everything. He said:
It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
Even though this is one of my favorite quotes from the book, I will be making a case for doubt as a philosophy.
Uncertainty is the only truth
These are insecure times. Somehow though, this is not reflected by what we see and hear in the media. People with strong opinions debate each other, the one more certain about their point of view than the other.
In the current state of the world, experts are mocked for changing their views on matters such as climate change or the way viruses spread. Yet, it is the ones that claim to know precisely what is going on and what we should do that we should be watching with suspicion.
If you really want to be right, be prepared to admit some things are simply not known or clear. Doubt and nuance are key, yet these properties are not welcome guests at talk show tables.
Mark Rutte
Our own prime minister admitted that during the peak of the COVID-19-crisis he was making decisions for our country based on whiffs of evidence and in some cases deciding what the course would be only minutes before the press conference. There were no clear facts, only ideas. I definitely don’t envy him for having to govern under such circumstances.
I praise him for admitting that he had no certainty to build on.
Subsequently though, as Dutch citizens, we must accept the idea that the prime minister may have flipped a coin to draw the lock down road map, but we need to follow it nonetheless. His doubts may not be reflected in our actions.
The appeal of misinformation
Sadly, US citizens do not have a leader that gives them a clear path to follow. This is not just tragic for the American people themselves, but also for the rest of the world. Just like it gives a kid confidence to compare notes with the classmate with the best grades before a test, we have become accustomed to look at what the “land of the free” does, to see how our own course compares.
In fact, POTUS #45 does pretty much the exact opposite of what our prime minister does. Whereas the Dutch prime minister says much is uncertain he still tells us what our course of action is going to be. The US president says he reads everything and knows all, yet he gives the American people nothing to go on as far as a consistent plan is concerned. More even he contradicts himself on a daily (hourly basis) and spreads (and invents) misinformation on the go.
Fake news and disinformation create fearful people that crave for a simple answer on which they can build a simple truth. People prefer a solution in a happy meal package; not nutritious per se but cheap and easy to swallow. We must not give in to that.
Actual facts take a while to take form. Ideas that don’t rely on research can be up and ready pretty much immediately. When faced with a new situation, people need a frame of reference. Conspiracies and fabricated information find fertile ground in these moments, as scientific information will not yet be available in such an early stage.
Practice doubt
In order to become a doubter, you must:
ask questions
empathize with people that think differently
be brave enough to change your mind
accept that absolute facts are rare (if they exist at all)
Because the more we admit we don’t really know anything for certain the closer we will be getting to the truth. The humility we gain in the process could even turn out to have a positive side effect in other areas as well.
This lifetip was originally supposed to be titled ‘Create your own compass’.
When Jesse Frederik discussed this lifetip in a Rudi & Freddie podcast episode, he lamented that fact that people tend to prioritize whatever fact they encounter most often.
He described that, as a consequence, we only seem to talk about what everybody else is talking about. His tip was meant as an encouragement to always ask ourselves what is important to us individually and to talk about that instead.
This all rang so true to me. I could think of dozens of examples of people that followed their heart, going against the stream, and making the world a better place because of it.
Also, Jesse Frederik proclaimed that people should make their own estimates and assessments with the available facts. You can do that by asking yourself, what ‘a lot’ means to you (for example when speaking about money)? What is a ‘big’, what is ‘small’? What is ‘wealth’? What is ‘poverty’?
Is a billion dollars investment in military equipment ‘a lot’? Should the amount going towards education be equal to that or would that be ‘too much’? Is a farmer in Spain rich or well off? Is he still rich when compared to farmers in the Netherlands? Is he rich in comparison to you?
Those type of questions are crucial for people like Jesse Frederik, who make a living from the understanding of politics and economics. It must be so frustrating to realize that people (including politicians and people in positions of power) have lost sight of proportions.
In money terms, it’s like everything above a million is just ‘a lot’, putting millions and billions and trillions all on the same heap of unfathomableness. This lack of understanding that we have of amounts and dimensions, is something I will go into further on another day, in another blogpost.
Whereto does the compass point?
Allow me to bring the focus back to the metaphor of the compass and the suggestion to ‘make your own’.
This lifetip was pretty much ready to be packed and posted, when the pandemic took over our lives. From that moment on, all sorts of people started deciding they knew what was good for themselves and their families in ways that were hard to fathom.
All of a sudden, me telling people to stand up for their own truths and to ‘create their own compass’, suddenly sounded like quite a dangerous notion, or in the very least an incomplete one.
I guess I had never considered the possibility that the idea of having an original opinion and a rebellious mind could backfire this way. That sounds incredibly naive now, doesn’t it?
So I came to the conclusion that suggesting you can make your own compass, implies that it is up to you to decide what North is. That is really not a good idea at this particular time.
We already know where North is, as well as East, West and South. The wind directions are not up for discussion. These are facts, backed by science and carefully crafted compasses (and modern day global positioning systems). The compass is fine. you don’t need a new one.
At the same time, I can not ignore the importance of questioning absolute truths every now and then and to never settle for answers like “That’s just the way it is” or “Because I told you so”.
So I went back to the drawing board.
True North
Something that applies to all compasses is that they are of no use if you don’t know where you are or where you want to go. If you don’t know what the starting point is, then there is really very little point in knowing what North, East, West or South is…
I then renamed the blogpost to “Find your own true North”, which is more of an encouragement to figure out which ideas you want to guide you through life.
I also contemplated if it would be different if the lifetip would be ‘Calibrate your compass’. This wouldn’t require a whole new set of truths (aka a new compass), just a re-allignment of your values with the current one.
It also reminded me of Jack Sparrow’s ‘broken compass’, that doesn’t point towards the classical wind directions, but only towards the thing you desire for most in life.
The idea of having a compass but no idea of ones position or destination paralyzed my whole thought process for a while.
Explorers and cartographers
When I found my courage to continue with this post, I decided to investigate the compass metaphor a bit further. I realized that, as a tool, it is most useful when you also have a map. With a map, you can pinpoint your location (or so I’ve been told) and analyze what you would encounter if you were to go in this direction or that.
Once you’ve decided where it is you want to go, the compass can be useful to set your course.
The map we all have to deal with in our daily lives, is one of those computer-game-type-maps where you only get to see the areas where you’ve already been and only fill in the rest as you proceed.
This means you will inevitably be flying blind for a a bit, until you pass a certain threshold and the new borders of the map become visible. I guess that notion comes closest to the way the first explorers had to navigate.
The point beyond the furthest anyone had ever gone remained blank on maps for many centuries. Dragons were drawn into these unknown territories to discourage people to go any further down that unknown path.
The parallel between that metaphor and life is that we can’t really know anything about situations in the future, nor anything that we haven’t experienced first hand.
I have to suppress the urge to type something sarcastic after the previous sentence, as it is almost insulting to have to say it. As professor Redundant would say: you don’t know what you don’t know.
Compare maps & compasses
Basing your choices in life solely on what you have experienced first hand is not very practical, though.
As an example; if I saw somebody diving into a pond from a high cliff and not die, I would assume I could do the same and survive as well. I wouldn’t need to measure the depth of the pond or the wind or check if the water was of the right density. I also wouldn’t check if there were crocodiles, sharks or anacondas down there ready to gobble me up. I would instantly accept that the reality that applied to the first diver would also apply to me (and that I would have fun in the process).
But what about the person standing on the side of the pond refusing to take the jump, convinced it would not end well? What reality does he base his ideas on? Does he have different facts? What does his compass read and what does his map show? Can both realities be true?
If I were to speak to the bystander, I could encourage him by saying “Come on and jump in with me! Hakuna Matata. It is fun!”. With that, I would be assuming many things.
His answer could be: “I am so clumsy, I would surely trip before making the jump and hurt myself with the fall”. I could comfort him by saying (without lying) that I had very poor motor skills myself and that if I could do it, he would surely be fine as well.
If he were to say “sure, but I can not swim”, that would definitely change things. It would indeed be dangerous for him to jump in, without being able to swim, and very reckless of me to encourage him anyway.
Pushing someone who can not swim to dive into a deep pond, would be homicidal. One could say that, from where I stand (with my compass and my map), it is quite rare to encounter someone who can not swim. It is customary for Dutch children to learn how to swim at an early age. My frame of reference tells me that, being an adult equals being able to swim. The possibility that an adult may not be able to swim, would simply not occur to me.
So… long story short: when speaking to someone with a different idea or opinion, it is very useful to check if your maps and your compasses are based on the same parameters, for you could be having a very long discussion without realizing you are simply not talking about the same thing.
Trust the equipment
This leaves me with the dilemma that I don’t want to encourage people to embrace ideas that are just not true.
After thinking it over, I arrived at the conclusion that people that are embracing ‘true fake news’, are not using a compass at all (and the fact that there we live in an era where we have to differentiate fake fake news (which is true) from true fake news (which is fake) continues to baffle me, but no something to go into further here).
People that are not willing to base their life decisions on facts but prefer to rely on gut feelings, would never look at a compass to decide whether to go left or right. They navigate more like Sandra Bullock did in the movie Birdbox; moving around in fear with a blindfold on, shooting at scary sounds and hoping for the best.
A compass will always just do that one thing, which is show you what direction North is. If someone would say “I don’t want a compass that shows me what North is, I want one that always points towards the closest supermarket”, you can simply conclude that they don’t really want a compass. That is not what compasses do. Period.
That means that the compass metaphor stands and that “Make your own compass” is still sound advice. The definition of that device already encompasses (hehehe) its parameters as well as its scientific origins.
Check your coordinates
Along with the creation (or purchase) of a compass one must also be encouraged to figure out the coordinates of ones current location.
I suppose that means you must become conscious of your position, which you can only do by looking around you and retracing your steps to where you came from.
Which lessons did you learn along the way? Ideally you would also ask yourself which lessons you didn’t learn, but that is a tough one (that goes back to the lesson professor Redundant brought us earlier).
What are your values? By whom were they instilled in you? What are your life goals and how do you wish to reach them?
Let’s say your life goal is “owning a house, a pool and a golden retriever”. Do you want to achieve said goal by working your ass off and slowly climbing the corporate ladder? Do you want to marry a rich gal or guy who will make all your dream come true? Or would you rather rob a bank?
All these options are viable. All of them have their up- and downsides. Your moral compass can help you decide which method fits you best.
The triad of tips
Congratulations, you have reached the bottom of the page and the end of this blogpost. The conclusion is that this lifetip consists of a triad of metaphorical tips:
Make and calibrate your own compass to set your course.
Determine your coordinates to figure out where you are, where you came from and where you want to go.
Check and compare your map and compass to that of the person beside you, especially if you plan to go out on an adventure together.
For now, I will leave any further translation of these metaphors to your own personal lives to you.
This lifetip is based on an idea Rutger Bregman spoke about in one of his podcast episodes, as were the previous four. It is motivated by his conviction that this is a time to be explicit and open about good deeds and ideology. We can go back to humility later. Right now we need to “be good out loud”.
The idea behind this, is that seeing others do good deeds is inspiring and contagious.
Charity & Public goods
There is a whole science behind understanding how and why people decide to do selfless things. Organizations that rely on donations and charity from the public can benefit greatly from these observations when applied to a fundraising campaign.
It has been observed that people’s decision making changes when confronted with different circumstances (such as time pressure or group dynamics). I find all of that super interesting, but it’s not really relevant for the point of this blog post, so I’m going to leave it at that. If you want to know more, this relatively short YouTube vid is a good place to start.
A 2004 Harvard research confirmed the idea behind this lifetip, revealing that seeing others making donations to a a charitable cause makes an individual more likely to do the same. Gentle encouragement from a family member or celebrity can also make a big difference.
Just be nice
An organization in the Netherlands that has put this message to the test is called SIRE. It’s sole mission is to make us better people through commercials and posters since 1967.
In 2019 it launched a campaign revolving around the hashtag “doeslief”. That word is a contraction of “doe eens lief”, which is basically the Dutch way of saying “just be nice”.
The videos and posters from this campaign showed statistics of unkindness, followed by nothing more than #doeslief (#Justbenice).
The image above shows three posters from the SIRE campaign #Doeslief, stating:
“146.571 vulgar tweets were sent in 2018 referencing cancer”
“Every year 8% of all public transport employees gets spat on”
“Cash register employee Myriam will be ignored by 30% of all customers today”
The campaign made many people chuckle at the time, but there’s no denying the phrase “Doeslief” did catch on. People say it to each other when they see a good deed being done or when there is need for one.
A follow up hashtag is now being used on social media, when an every day hero gets a shout out: #daslief. In correct Dutch that would be written as “Dat is lief”, meaning “That is nice”.
Claim the spotlight
So, don’t wait any longer. Claim your place in the spotlight.
Did you save a duckling from being run over? Tweet it!
Did you throw somebody else’s litter in the trashcan? Tell a colleague!
Did you wash your elderly neighbor’s windows? Take a pic and share it!
There is that danger of becoming an annoying and presumptious smartass. Just remind yourself that staying quiet and modest would mean the only ones talking would be the Drumpfs of this world.
So be nice, be generous, be a hero. And be explicit about it. #Daslief
When young lifetips grow up, I imagine they look up to the successful ones that made it onto tiles, memes or calendars. In comparison to the three life lessons I shared previously, this fourth one has a greater chance of ever becoming an inspirational quote of some sort.
Jesse Frederik first introduced this lifetip to me in somewhat confusing terms:
You don’t have to believe everything you think.
To me it means that it’s OK to let go of ideas you may have had in the past. For example, I used to think vegetarians were delusional, annoying and unhealthy. Now I believe that being vegetarian does not mean forsaking flavor, nor do I have to dress in hemp and grow dreadlocks. Also, it’s just undeniably better for the planet than maintaining a meat-based diet will ever be.
Another interpretation of this motto would start by breaking with the commonplace assumption that a person’s internal thoughts are always a monologue.
I suppose we all know the catholic mantra “What would Jesus do?”. It is a way of internalizing the voice of someone who’s morality you would want to apply to specific dilemma. Without getting too psychological about it, I hope we can agree that every person also has a “What would my mother do?” checkpoint, that pops up at specific moments (not always conveniently).
The happiness gurus of the 21st century might say the line refers to the negative thoughts we all have sometimes. Thoughts such as:
I am not good enough.
The world is unkind / dangerous.
I can’t do it (so I’m not even going to try).
A meaningful (and sad) metaphor that is sometimes used in this context is that of the domesticated elephant, that has been chained and ‘broken’ at an early age. During this time, she may have struggled to free herself but failed, leading her to believe it is impossible to do. Once grown, the elephant obeys orders to move and carry heavy objects. The same chain would be no match for the power she could apply to it as an adult elephant. At that point though, what keeps her from trying, is the belief that she can’t.
So.
Evaluate the thoughts you have every now and then. Don’t be afraid of changing a strong opinion you may have had out of fear of being seen as inconsistent or unstable.
Discuss your insecurities with the ones you love and trust. It will oftentimes be those moments, when you vocalize your thoughts, that you realize that is not what you believe at all. Saying them out loud will reveal their untruth. Just like a ridiculous dream, that makes total sense until the moment you wake up.
The third post in my series of Lifetips will be dedicated to the benefits of hierarchy. It is actually a very improbable lesson to ever be coming from a Dutch person’s mouth, as we tend to have very little respect for these things.
Then again, maybe countries that actually understand and respect the implications of hierarchical structures wouldn’t need this lesson in the first place. Perhaps they could, however, explain it better than I (or Rutger Bregman, who brought it up in his April 2019 podcast episode) can.
Bregman poses that progress may not be possible in a purely egalitarian atmosphere. Hierarchy is needed in order to move forward on the long run.
The fact that western societies have increasingly been promoting “nice guys”, has softened our culture, as well as our politics. For our institutions however, too many nice guys is a curse. At some point, somebody needs to call ‘bullshit’, even it hurts someone’s feelings or means that all the work that has been done so far will be thrown in the bin.
An example that was given by Jesse Frederiks was a plan that journalist platform “the Correspondent” had upon its conception in regards to its compensation model. The initial plan was to let all the employees decide on the salary levels among themselves. The idea was that there would be full openness on the matter, with everybody having knowledge and insight into the division of the company’s money.
Long story short: it didn’t work.
Everybody was pretty relieved when they went back to a more traditional model, with specific people responsible for such decisions.
People that didn’t agree with the slice of the cake they ended up with, could complain about bad decision making by people elsewhere in the building and then bond over it with direct colleagues around the coffee machine (instead of having to blame them for it). Also, not having all the facts, turned out to be a relief to many.
Without hierarchy, direct colleagues would have to decide on a course of action together and battle out their differences face-to-face. This inevitably causes some friction, which makes working together increasingly difficult.
So perhaps certain positions require people who do not mind being disliked (for the greater good)?
Those at the bottom of the food chain do what they are told, without having to debate why and how.
With a person higher in rank calling the shots, foot soldiers can bond with their comrades over their shared suffering. At the end of the day the work gets done and everybody (except maybe that one guy) can go out for beers to celebrate.
In the YouTube video below Jordan Peterson (who Im not sure suffers from that Mr-Nice-Guy-complex) gives his explanation of why hierarchy is necessary and how left- and rightwing thinkers can (must?) keep the ranks from falling apart or being corrupted.
Sometimes you need an asshole to stand up, that doesn’t care if people like him or not, to get the job done. It’s OK to hate him. But recognize that you couldn’t have done it without him.
What do you think? Do you believe in an egalitarian system? Or is hierarchy really indispensable for stable community structures?
As I explained in the introduction of Lifetip #1, this series of blogs is inspired by a Rudi & Freddie podcast episode in which the hosts name a dozen of their most important lifetips to humanity.
The second lifetip I am going to try to discuss here is one that is actually more of a complaint than it is a concrete and practical lifetime recommendation.
It all revolves around economist Jesse Frederik venting about modern day tendencies to search for new cures for age old problems. He complains that people keep coming up with new fancy ideologies, which they present in spiffy TED talks and best selling books, without appreciating all the ideas that previous thinkers already explored.
My summary of what this life tip boils down to, is the following:
Try to understand existing theories before searching for (and accepting) new ones.
The internet has never been so influential. We have gotten accustomed to having news and information at our disposal 24/7. We don’t even need to remember anything ourselves. We just need to remember the Google search terms needed to find something and regurgitate whatever the WWW-beast feeds us. We can look up the same thing a million times instead of making an effort to actually memorize the information we are pointing our eyeballs at.
If we are forced to deal with a complex theory, we watch the 10 min breakdown on YouTube (or TikTok or whatever kids are into these days) instead of reading the actual book. Even an elaborate newspaper article is a challenge, let alone a peer reviewed academic piece.
The abbreviation TLDRis the ultimate 21st century (online) conversation stopper. As much as I hate that, I must admit there are times when I can’t work my way through blogposts that take longer then 5-10 minutes to read.
Soundbites & Blurbs
Despite our faulty attention spans, we are more opinionated than ever. Politics, gender, race, anthem singing etiquette, Scandinavian teenagers and their braids. So many things to disagree on and so little time!
We are in constant need of quick facts and snappy comebacks to reinforce our opinions. You have to avoid talking about “the pros and cons” and “consequences on a macro level” if you don’t want people to walk (or click) away.
Even if you happen to be one of the rare ones who actually read Karl Marx’ whole Manifesto, you have to be able to present its content in bite size portions if you ever want to use it to convince someone about the correct implementation of communism (which I am assuming is what Karl Marx wrote about… TLDR).
Ask TED
The popularity of TED Conference Talks on YouTube is another clear sign of the amount of information we have become comfortable dealing with in one sitting. TED Talks are 10 to 30 minute mini-lectures on scientific, cultural, political, and academic topics.
As much as I love myself a good TED talk, I do realize the emphasis is sometimes more on the “feel good” aspect of an idea than on the actual science behind it. I’m not saying that the content presented in TED Talks is incorrect per se. But one could argue that the talks that make the cut, rely more on the talent of the speaker and the video’s potential as click bait on social media, than on the actual relevance of the topic.
Catchy new theories make for interesting conversations around the coffee machine. Their simplicity make them appealing, either because they confirm a popular idea or because it works well as a “fun fact” on social occasions.
Simple theories are becoming more accepted than complicated ones, following the “It is true because I get it”-logic.
Break the Dunning-Kruger effect
A 1999 Psychology study by David Dunning and Justin Kruger described a phenomenon in human behavior that seems to apply to a large percentage of the human race. It manifests itself when people have an opinion about things they don’t know shit about. If they would’ve let the online community (by which I mean me) give their findings a name, it may have ended up being called the Kim Kardashian effect, but they decided to name it after themselves, which…. I mean… sure.
And now, it is time for some painful irony.
You see, what I really want to do now is embed a relatively short YouTube video to do some of the explaining for me. My attention span is waning and so is yours, so just click play below. You can thank me later.
People that know the least about a topic tend to think they know the most. It is only after you actually learn something that you realize how little you really know. Even actual experts in their field aren’t as self assured about their knowledge as the complete dimwits are.
Our current state of intellectual apathy has also cemented the idea that scientists make their research complicated just to spite us.
How do you come back at corny platitudes being slung across the table about the “status quo” muddying the water with difficult words?
What do you do when the facts others rely on come from nothing more than their own gut, and others are overly eager to accept a more convenient stance on reality?
Discouraging as it may feel, according to Jesse Frederik, the solution is: MORE FACTS!
Read books and articles about a topic you have an opinion on. Don’t avoid submerging yourself with ideas that may contradict your own and talk about them with others in a respectful manner.
Continue listening to TED talks on YouTube but also look up more elaborate lectures made by the same experts.
Know your -isms and -ologies, and don’t be afraid to use them.
Rutger Bregman and Jesse Frederik are the hosts of my favorite Dutch podcast: de Rudi & Freddie Show. They discuss all sorts of topics, which at one point ventured into their disdain towards self help books. But, as is typical for R&F, they decided to investigate the popularity of the genre and then ended up coming up with their own list of life-improvement tips.
Rutger Bregman’s first tip, also stars in his most recent book “De meeste mensen deugen”. The title is kind of difficult to translate as there isn’t really an English equivalent for the word “deugen”. The noun “deugd” means “virtue”, and the verb means something along the lines of “to be virtuous”, but it’s used in a much more casual way than the English version makes it sound…
Someone could ask me if I’ve met my brother’s new girlfriend. My answer could then be: “Ja, ze deugt”, which is just basically three words to say that I have indeed met her and that I give her a thumbs up.
Long story short, Rutger’s newest book title translates to something along the lines of “Most people are cool”.
The accompanying tip boils down to:
Always assume good intent.
There will always be moments in life when you are not quite sure what “the other” thinks, feels or might do. When you find yourself in such a situation, you can assume the worst and start preparing (mentally) for somebody’s anger, stupidity or deceit. You can also chill out, assume all is well and nobody is out to get you.
Why would you give people the benefit of the doubt?
Because it is most often right.
Because it is less stressful
Because you avoid making it a self fulfilling prophecy
Rutger insists that trust is the water that we swim in. Having your trust broken (by being set up, robbed or swindled out of your money) is collateral damage. The price you pay for mistrust is not worth the amount of negative energy it brings into your life.
True story
A while ago, somebody knocked on my door. The person at the door was a stranger. He told me he lived down the street from me and that never did this kind of thing but that his sister had just been hospitalized and that he needed a couple of euro’s to fill up the tank of his scooter to go see her.
So what were my choices? I could assume the worst and let my fantasy freak me out:
He’s a junkie who is going to use the money to get high.
He’s never going to pay me back.
Next time he knocks he is going to rob me.
The alternative was to assume he was telling the truth and help the dude out.
In all honesty I did a bit of both: I assumed he was telling the truth, but didn’t count on seeing him or the money back ever again (even though he assured me several times he would be back the following week).
I dug through several bags and pockets to collect all the bits of change I could find (because really, who still has cash these days?) and told him it was not necessary to repay me but that he should pay it forward to somebody else some day.
So yah, I may have “lost” 4 euros. Or did I?
Maybe he really did come back with the money but I wasn’t home.
Maybe the handful of change is still being handed down to people in need, spreading kindness and smiles across the country.
Maybe he was really planning on coming back to rob and kill me, but changed his mind after my kindness (or when he glanced into my house and saw that my house was a trip hazard).
Hold on… That last one doesn’t sound quite right. This positive-assumption thing takes some getting used to, I guess…
Society and politics
Let’s try applying the same logic to a larger scale.
Because if we trust the people right in front of us, we can trust people a bit further away as well, can’t we? And if we do that, we can assume whole groups of people consist solely of good-intentioned folks.
What could we achieve as a society if we put full trust in each other? What would our laws look like if we weren’t always basing them on the assumption that people want to take advantage of the system?
That is some radical thinking, I’m telling you…
Trust your friendly neighborhood charlatan
Have you ever been cheated? Good! That means you put trust in someone. Keep it up!
If you haven’t been scammed at least a few times in your life you may be missing out on the good stuff by being too mistrustful.
Epiphany 