Tomorrow is Smallsteps' birthday. Her first Friday the 13th birthday so far, not that she means much to her, other than it being her birthday. Nor should it.
While I don't believe in superstitions like lucky numbers or unlucky days, I suspect that they can have a tangible affect on those who do, in the same way that a placebo can influence outcomes. While most people these days say they don't believe, it is likely that we all have our superstitious quirks of some kind or another, little idiosyncratic behaviors that we perform under the belief they matter, even if they don't. We are all ritualistic at our core.
We have to be, as it is the way our mind works. We are process orientated and we form habits to take load off our mental processes to save energy. This means we have to create patterns of behavior and part of that is identifying what works and what does not.
There is a lot of noise in the environment and this means that we can tie unconnected events to outcomes, believing they matter. Then we try to recreate the conditions of our success, which is why some athletes will have lucky pants that they don't wash, as they believe it affects their game. But everyone likely does this to some degree, favoring one item or process over another even if practically, it doesn't matter at all.
But it does matter once we have created a routine, as we start to rely on the process and make our actions automatic. While this saves energy as the algorithm runs its normal course, disruption can put our process out of sync and cause us to lose our way. For example, an unexpected call as walking out the door, can lead to a person locking their keys inside, as they forgot to pick them up in the same way they have done a thousand times before without forgetting.
The impact disruption has on an individual varies, as does the type and area it occurs within. Some people are very good at pivoting on change in one domain, but struggle in another, which normally comes down to experience and skill. I myself could think on my feet and problem-solve in front of clients, but don't have the same ability across every area that I perform in. Experience gives me the tools and competencies I need to be able to adjust my behavior on the fly, but if I rely on an automatic response that is dependent on conditions remaining constant and those conditions change, it makes it hard to reach the same or similar outcomes.
At high school I had a girlfriend that had aspirations of becoming a chef and she would cook from recipes well. However, if for some reason she was missing ingredients, she wasn't able to "make do" with what was available and even though she tried, she didn't have the skill of being able to find a suitable replacement.
I am not sure if this is innate or not, but I find that the "necessity is the mother of invention" concept to be quite true, where those who have the least available, tend to be the most creative. It is no wonder to me that some of the poorest places on earth have the richest food varieties, as they have had to learn to experiment when things were unavailable. In the places where processes and ingredients are relatively stable, the food is also relatively bland.
Personalities of individuals tend to be the same, wit those who have experienced a wide variety of life at a large range of levels generally the most colorful and interesting. Those who have had steady experience, generally the least. While this is not always the case, there is also the sense of authenticity that comes from the broad experience, as not only is there the depth, but it doesn't need to be embellished to impress, meaning it can be delivered from the heart without too much head getting in the way. As is said, truth is stranger than fiction.
But, we are all affected by disruption to our personal processes to some degree and I think that this is part of what makes us so powerful. If we aren't disrupted, we will act like robots, completing our programming even if it is not suitable or working in the changed conditions. Disruption is an opportunity to break the automatic response and become reflective on what we are doing, our surroundings and whether we can adjust to create a better outcome based on the new information injected into our awareness.
It is how we cope with the breaking of habit, the evaluation and acceptance of conditions, and the ability to change our processes into something better that matters. Some people can do this incredibly fast, some people struggle and fight against change all of their lives. I have found that like many, I am somewhere between. I don't like change, but I understand enough to know that it is necessary in many circumstances and fighting the change doesn't lead to a solution. It is not that I have to give into conditions and make them inevitable, it is just that I can go in understanding that whatever happens, I have to change too.
I am part of the problem, or part of the solution - there is no neutral position in life. And I think that part of this is why everyone is looking for any advantage they can find, even if it means wearing a pair of unwashed pants thinking it will help us win a competition. It is game theory after all - we act rationally in self-interest, even if what we are doing is illogical.
Tomorrow my daughter turns five and as such, we will use the opportunity to adjust some of her routines, to introduce more responsibilities and to bring in a little more disruption to her life. It is a parents job to make sure that children experience disappointment, as life is full of expectations going unmet and those who believe they are entitled, tend to suffer through life, rather than experience the beauty of all the variability available. It won't be long though until she will have to find her own path forward alone and it will be up to her if she relies on habits to ease her life, or build those that enrich it.
In the coming decades, a lot of people are going to face a slew of disruption across the economy, technology and society simultaneously, making many habits irrelevant, many processes counter-productive. It is probably prudent to get prepared to change.
Taraz
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