The book reminds us that “humanity is a living library of information” – we have access to people who have done things or have undergone experiences that we are merely contemplating. So true. Because in addition to family, friends and colleagues giving us advice, there’s an abundance of consultants, instructors, coaches, counselors, psychologists out there. Plus, there’s Google and other search engines. By a click of a button, we can look up for information on almost any experience we can imagine and read about testimonials and blogs. And as some studies prove, the most accurate way to predict our future feelings is not to imagine it but to see how others are feeling today.
But if we have access to such wealth of information, why do we still sometimes end up making bad choices? For 3 reasons which we aren’t probably conscious of -
1. We think we know ourselves too well because it’s only us who know ourselves from the inside.
2. We consider ourselves as special or different because we think our experiences are unique, and thus, our reactions and other people’s reaction towards a situation would differ.
3. We tend to overestimate everyone’s uniqueness, thus, we see others very different from what they actually are.
Because of these, we don’t realize how similar we all are and tend to rely on our imagination instead of learning from the experiences of others and listening to good advice.
Lastly, some words of caution when we purely rely on our imagination - when we imagine ourselves in the future (e.g. losing a job,winning an award, migrating to a new place, shifting to a different career), our brain tends to overestimate the duration of an event or miss out on some important details.
We tend to focus on the situation as an end to itself and we forget that there’s life after the situation. Reality will set in after some happy event (e.g. winning in the lotto) and there’s always a chance to recover after every difficult event (e.g. failed relationship).
Many people have been through all kinds of experiences and many have survived and succeeded. So when it comes to making major decisions or simply coping with life, let’s not overestimate our uniqueness or the uniqueness of our circumstances because we’re more similar than different. And let’s not reinvent the wheel because thousands..hundreds of thousands…and probably even millions of others have most likely been there and done it and we should learn from them.:)
We tend to focus on the situation as an end to itself and we forget that there’s life after the situation. Reality will set in after some happy event (e.g. winning in the lotto) and there’s always a chance to recover after every difficult event (e.g. failed relationship).
Many people have been through all kinds of experiences and many have survived and succeeded. So when it comes to making major decisions or simply coping with life, let’s not overestimate our uniqueness or the uniqueness of our circumstances because we’re more similar than different. And let’s not reinvent the wheel because thousands..hundreds of thousands…and probably even millions of others have most likely been there and done it and we should learn from them.:)