When it comes to the big disagreements we see lately, on topics such as abortion or border control, people generally take “sides”. To pick a side often means that you don’t want to debate the nuances, which is where the truth often lies.
An antidote to this proclivity is complexifying: showcasing the range of perspectives on a given topic. We might believe we’re making progress by discussing hot-button issues as two sides of a coin, but people are actually more inclined to think again if we present these topics through the many lenses of a prism.
It’s easier to just pick a side, but taking the time to really digest and debate a topic is what can lead to real change. Topics like border control aren’t just a pro/con argument, but get into deeper topics with laws, infrastructure, legal immigration processes and more. Thoughts on what is right will vary a lot, which is good for all of us, but simply picking a side isn’t the answer.
I heard this quote in a recent podcast from Adam Grant, though I believe it’s attributed to Tom Magliozzi, former co-host of the popular “Car Talk” radio show on NPR.
As I thought about it, it’s kind of a tricky thing. I wrote earlier this year about setting proper expectations, and it aligns nicely with that. If we know a particular restaurant is going to be slow, and we keep that expectation in mind going in, our happiness with the experience rises quite a lot.
On the flip side, if you always keep very low expectations it can lead to a rather unfulfilling life. Chasing dreams can lead to wonderful places, even if they sometimes fall short.
Which medal?
Ultimately, your expectations really make a big difference in how you see life. There have been studies that show that in the Olympic Games, bronze medal winners are generally happier with their result than silver medal winners. Silver medal winners almost won gold, but fell short. On the other hand, bronze medal winners almost got nothing at all, but ended up on the medal stand.
Trying to find happiness in more situations is a good way to go through life, and proper expectations will greatly increase your chances of staying happy.
With all of the chaos these days surrounding masks and vaccines, I see a lot of talk about what our “rights” are, and whether certain mandates might be violating them.
I’ve seen it laid out pretty clearly in a few places and it makes sense to me with two simple ideas.
If it is something you can change, it’s a rule
You don’t have to like it, and it might make your life less convenient, but any business can impose a rule if they want to. This means wearing shoes in a store, or wearing a mask if you’re asked to.
There are a lot of rules out there that I don’t like, but that doesn’t matter; if a business puts a rule in place, I can either abide by it or choose to go elsewhere. My rights are untouched either way.
If it is something you can’t change, it’s a prejudice
If the color of your skin, disability, or something else outside of your control is limiting what you can do, that’s a prejudice and is indeed a violation of your rights. These are known as immutable characteristics (“any sort of physical attribute which is perceived as being unchangeable, entrenched and innate” – Wikipedia) and they should never hold you back.
You may find yourself dealing with rules that you don’t agree with, but the difference should be pretty easy to understand.
Seth Godin gave an interesting challenge in his podcast last week, where he encouraged people to announce what they were going to say before they say it. For example, if you’re getting frustrated on the phone with a customer service rep, you’d say “Next I’m going to get riled up a bit more and threaten to leave, then I’ll tell you that I know the CEO and I’ll have you fired, and then I’ll start really screaming. Ready? Let’s begin.”
It’d be ridiculous to actually go through with it that way, but taking a moment to think through it yourself might make you realize how ridiculous those actions of yours would be as well.
Seth summarized it well here:
Maybe if you’re not willing to say the thing that you’re about to do, you might not want to do the thing.
It covers most areas of life that if you’re not willing to announce what you’re going to do (or share what you recently did), it might be a poor decision on your part. Much better to think about it ahead of time and change your course of action, than to realize it afterward and be ashamed of how you behaved.
It’s a common phrase when trying to work through something — “let’s agree to disagree“. While that may work in some cases, such as your preferred college football team, in many cases it’s just a way to give up.
As Adam Grant recently said, using that phrase means that you’ve “decided that the conflict is unresolvable“. Is it really?
That’s not to say you should always continue to fight until both parties are mad. At some point, being willing to walk away knowing a middle ground was never reached is a wise thing to do. In most cases, though, the truth is out there and it’s worth taking the time to find it.
In many cases, it comes down to rephrasing the question. Take these examples, which are seemingly all unresolvable:
Unresolvable: “Yellow is the prettiest color”, “Michigan is the best football team”, or “PCs are better than Macs”
By adjusting the initial statement to add a bit more clarity, they become questions that can be clearly answered and supported by facts.
Resolvable: “Yellow is the most visible color for emergency vehicles”, “Michigan is the winningest football team of all time”, “PCs are less expensive than Macs for comparable hardware”.
Don’t create enemies for no reason, but don’t just bail and “agree to disagree” on something that might have a clear resolution not too far away.
Even as the population of the world continues to increase, it seems likely that car production will never be this high again. In fact, annual car production peaked in 2017 and is already in a slow decline.
There are a lot of factors behind this, but ride-sharing and urban growth (and related public transit) are the two big ones. I personally use ride sharing services quite a bit (well, COVID aside) and have even toyed with the idea of getting rid of my car and exclusively using those. I’m not there yet, but it’s coming.
Fewer cars, but just as much traffic
You may be ahead of me and see where this going. Even with car production dropping, traffic is likely to be awful in major cities for a long time to come. There will be fewer cars purchased, but just as many (if not more) on the road — each car will just be utilized to a much greater degree.
Most cars sit in a driveway, garage or parking lot at least 90% of the time. Even if you have a one-hour commute each way, that’s only 8% of your day.
However, a ride sharing service like Uber can have cars in use for huge chunks of the day. You could have 20 people stop owning a car and they could be replaced by a single Uber driver. Ownership in that group would be down by 95%, but traffic remains the same.
Self-driving cars
This gets a bit more interesting when ride-sharing services start using self-driving cars. Those cars can go all day shuttling people around, and then go to a distant parking lot at night to recharge and prepare for the next day. In fact, the reduced need for public parking is one of the amazing perks of this direction. If you’re getting dropped off at work or at a ball game, the Uber doesn’t need to park there; they’ll be heading out to get their next passenger.
Parking
For example, look at Dodger Stadium below and the vast amounts of space they’ve had to give up for parking. It’s understandable, but unfortunate.
I don’t think car sales will just nose-dive or anything. I plan to have my own car for the foreseeable future, and we’ll be adding another to our family when our youngest turns 16 next year.
However, when my grandkids turn 16 (in perhaps 25 years), I think it’s very likely they won’t even bother getting a driver’s license thanks to ride-sharing and self-driving cars.
The number of cars on the road will stay high (and perhaps get higher) for a long time, but sales are probably in a never-ending decline.
It’s well-known that many celebrities have some strange demands when they’re traveling, but a story that has gone around for years is that Van Halen always requested a bowl of M&Ms in their room, with all of the brown ones removed. What a strange request!
Except it wasn’t. They had a specific and creative reason for this request.
Van Halen brought some serious hardware to their shows, the biggest production ever at the time, and it was a crazy setup. Their contract rider was massive, but it was essential that promoters read every line of it to make sure the building could handle the power, size and weight of everything they were bringing in. Some promoters merely skimmed the document, which caused many problems over the years.
Included in the rider was the clause to remove the brown M&Ms. If Van Halen arrived at a venue and saw brown M&Ms in the back, that was a sign that the promoter hadn’t carefully read the rider, and they had potential safety concerns in the setup.
Requesting M&Ms with the brown ones removed seemed very silly and petty, but it turned out to a brilliant way to determine what they were walking into.
Here’s David Lee Roth explaining it in an interview years ago:
As the world moves toward more electric vehicles, one big change is coming that many haven’t considered — cities will be getting quieter. As the “Not Just Bikes” YouTube channel says, “Cities aren’t loud; cars are loud“. They produced an excellent video that unpacks that, which can be seen here:
The big thing it make me realize, though, is that engine noise only really matters at lower speeds. At high speeds, tire noise is generally louder than the engines, so going electric won’t help as much as I had first suspected. Further, electric vehicles often weigh more than their gas-powered counterparts, which adds a bit more to the road noise that they put out. Still, eliminating engine noise at high speeds will help a bit, and for slower areas it should help quite a lot.
We’re still years before electric vehicles become the most popular type of car to purchase, and then many years beyond that before they become the majority on the road. As that transition slowly happens, hopefully more cities will take inspiration from what Delft did in the video above and work to reduce noise at every level.
I was listening to a podcast recently where they discussed how we all have various “chapters” in our lives, often only seen when looking back on them. I thought it’d be interesting to see how mine shake out so far.
I thought they might be tied to each time I’ve moved, and that’s certainly a factor, but I’ve moved 11 times in my life and really only have five chapters. The number of moves is a bit misleading because 8 of them happened in my 20’s (moving out of home, with friends, to an apartment, then a house, etc).
Here are my five chapters so far:
1976 – 1988
Birth through sixth grade. In sixth grade we moved across the state, met new friends, etc. Also, middle school is a pivotal time in many lives, and that seems like good place to call it a chapter break.
1988 – 1998
This was the rest of the time I lived at home. We moved across the state again in the middle of that, but it was less of a major shift. I was already in high school and was active in track and cross country, so that move wasn’t really a new chapter.
1998 – 2002
In 1998 I moved out of the house and down to Georgia, met my wife a few years later, and got married. Certainly a noteworthy chapter there.
2003 -2004
By far the shortest chapter, but we moved to Alabama for two years, had our first daughter, and then moved back to Georgia. A short chapter, but certainly a noteworthy one!
2005 – present
This is my longest chapter so far, but it’s seemingly coming to a close soon. With one daughter off to college this fall, and the other a sophomore in high school, things are changing fast. That said, I’m not sure that this chapter will have a clear end. Is it now, with one off to college? Or in three years, when both are out? Or what if one of them moves back home for a while?
I think in the future I’ll be able to look back and see it more clearly, as I have for the other chapters, but right now it’s very fuzzy (and that’s ok).
GreenMellen
This could also be a fun way to look at our company. How does that break down into chapters? While each hire essentially makes for a “new” company, I think I can simplify into a few bigger chunks:
2005-2009:The pre-years. I met Ali, we worked together at a different job, and we slowly came closer to starting a company.
2009-2013:The early years. We started the company and it was just Ali and I for the most part, figuring things out as we go.
2013-present:The real company. In 2013 we got our office and made our first few hires, and it’s been onward and upward ever since then. This could be broken down a lot further, but it seems like a solid chunk to keep in one chapter for now.
What do your chapters look like? If you break them down, how many do you have so far?
