I am on a quest for excellence and self realization and on this quest I have come to learn that I own an elephant. I say “what tha (enter superlative of your choice here, for I have used them all myself, and they all work). In the book Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the idea that we are all schizophrenic is presented (which obviously raised my eyebrow). The rational is simply that we have an emotional side and a rational side, and we basically battle between the two for a happy medium called balance. Some are obviously better at it than others (myself being in the category of “others”).
To further drive the point home, the Heath siblings site two separate studies (I will only discuss one of them) which I thought were pretty neat, rad, awesome ( I really think I am clever now). The first, was by far my favorite. Two groups of college students were brought together, the first group was given the daunting task of resisting radishes and scarfing down fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. To note, both groups were hungry as they were instructed not to eat prior to the study. Also, they were told the study was about tasting food (not measuring will power). So, they accomplished their task with ease. The second group had to resist the fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and eat up their less than savory radishes (how yummy). Shortly after, they were to accomplish another task, and again they were lied to about what it was “really” about. Side bar does it bother anyone else that these researchers are lying so much in the name of science?
The subjects were informed that this study was to see which students were better at solving puzzles, college students or high school students. What trickery! Since these were college students you they got a little cocky (especially since they had been fed). At any rate, they were given puzzles that were intended to be unsolvable, and guess what? Neither of the two groups solved the puzzles. But here is what is truly interesting, the group that had to exercise will power and resist the cookies gave up first, they tried only 19 times (which is 18 more than I would have tried). However, those who did not have to resist, tried for a whopping 34 times before calling it quits. Whats the point? Psycho analysts noted that the “resisters” gave up because they became frustrated faster, point being: “Will power is an exhaustible resource”.
So, where does the elephant fit in to all this? I am an emotion driven person, and I find it very difficult to control my emotions in certain situations, but I do manage. However, I get frustrated very easily, with inanimate objects such as computers (especially when the network is slow). Rational is the rider of the emotion elephant, and it is the elephant with the unfair advantage, its huge. The rider and elephant can travel in harmony but once there is a disagreement on which direction to take, you know how the story will end. I imagine a puny rider perched atop a raging elephant, charging unceremoniously through the jungle, ears spread, flapping wildly as it vehemently trumpets in protest of whatever has got it all riled up. And the poor rider, pouring his heart out to God, his past, present and future flashing before his eyes as he holds on for dear life.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea about the elephant. While rational determines where we go, its that elephant, emotion that give us the push, the umph to get there. Emotion is responsible for love, compassion, protection of loved ones, passion and drive, emotion is what is needed to get the job done! Armed with this information, I am finding answers to why I do certain things, which puts me in a better position to get along with and manage my elephant. Seriously, I can’t wait to explore this subject in greater depth.
You have not seen the last of this topic, nor the chapters in the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath. 🙂
Be Awesome Today! :-) 