We can’t desire something we don’t even know exists. But some things can redirect your future. Here are some guidelines for dealing with this risk.
The risk of not knowing
Some things that happen to us, even simple ones, can make big differences in our lives. An example is an encounter with a certain person. Look at yourself: think of someone important to you now, and imagine what your life would be like without them
Sometimes it is a single sentence, properly put into practice. One that I include in this category I saw at the beginning of the movie The Great Gatsby.
The protagonist says that his father had given him a piece of advice: "Look for the best in each person". Reflect for a moment on how the world would be different if many people did just that.
This great impact from a single small difference is known as the butterfly effect. (Wikipedia, video).
My favorite way of referring to the butterfly effect in our lives is that it redirects our future.
Small events can redirect our future.
In particular, for those who work or study, knowledge of a single new method or a new tool can result in a butterfly effect.
These ideas beg the question: what is there that could have such a rippling impact on our lives? If it exists and we know it, we can still look for it. But what if it exists and we don't even know it? Of course, we will not miss it, desire it and much less seek it.
We cannot desire what we do not even know.
We cannot miss what we haven’t even experienced.
Opinions generate risks
One eye-tracking survey conducted at the Missouri University of Science and Technology calculated that when viewing a website, users take less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression. One study found even lower values.
Another study, on people's first impressions, found that people form impressions about others in about a tenth of a second!
And, believe it or not, the lecture Your body language may shape who you are, on the great website ted.com, says that Alex Todorov, at Princeton University, showed that judgments of the faces of political candidates in just one second predict 70% of the results of the Senate and the elections for governor in the USA.
The term “impression” is not well defined, but I believe it is closely tied to opinion. An opinion could be seen as a synthesis of impressions — a kind of “impression summary”. A consistent set of impressions, whether positive or negative, tends to stabilize an opinion. Of course, this depends on the person; some seem to form, or rather, solidify an opinion based solely on their first impression.
Once you have an opinion, people will naturally use that opinion as a reference. For example, what is your favorite place for leisure? What is one of your favorite dishes? If in this case you have noticed your mouth watering, you know how intense the effect of an opinion can be; a thought generating an effect on the body!
And a firm opinion functions as a kind of confirmation bias — that is, what aligns with it is processed, and what contradicts it is simply ignored. In the case of politicians, it’s ironic: they spend millions trying to persuade voters who hear but don’t really listen. The popular saying “it goes in one ear and out the other” holds some truth.
The great risk of premature opinions
One possibility associated with forming opinions is to deceive yourself. An opinion that something will not be useful, for example, is in fact not faithful to reality. Thus, we can effectively find something that would redirect or make our lives much easier, but we don't realize it and let the opportunity pass us by.
A possible causal factor of this poor evaluation is superficiality; if we do not go deep enough, we can draw premature and mistaken conclusions and not evaluate the relevance of what we find with quality.
Superficiality in decisions is risky: have you ever thought about not realizing that someone is the love of your life because you didn't know them more deeply? Or decide to jump into water without knowing its depth?
(freepik)
Risky possibility: evaluate without sufficient depth.
Another possible causal factor of poor quality reviews is a lack of experience. Evaluating something without experience is like deciding not to eat a dish just for its appearance; getting the flavor right just by guesswork has its uncertainties.
Risky possibility: evaluate without experience.
Essential purpose: quality decision
This Getting Started section aims to provide you with what you need to know to evaluate a tool - mind maps - with a good level of depth: what and how they are, what they are for, and possibilities for what you can do with them. We also comment on myths, illusions and exaggerations about mind maps that you will find out there.
We live in a "babel" of languages and names for things, where the same things can have different names and different things can have the same name. This occurs with mind maps; to deal with this confusion, we have prepared a special article.
By knowing and understanding the resource/tool better, you can make decisions about it with greater confidence and don’t run the risk of losing a good opportunity because you have superficial, incomplete or distorted information.
Starting out can also prevent you from investing time, effort, perhaps money in something that will not bring you enough benefits or advantages, as seems to happen so often.
In summary, your decision, like any quality decision, will be conscious, motivated and sustained.
Naturally, if you are starting, you are not prepared for structural decisions, and the smartest decision now is, in my opinion, to seek to know more. For this, and as a briefer and more didactic introduction, you can read the article The first mind map we never forget.
Quality decision: seek to be more informed.
