What if…
Tue., January 7, 10:51 AM
What if…
When my brother and I were small – I think we must have been eight and eleven or younger – we used to play a game of “what if?” This was usually at night after we were in bed; we were allowed to talk or listen to the radio if we got into bed early. “What would you do if you were on a desert island and you had to find food?” “What would you do if you accidentally locked yourself out when you had no clothes on?” Some predicaments were really far out, but they stretched our imaginations. While I am all for giving kids their own rooms (a luxury I never truly experienced), I remember how we profited from the time to talk, spin tales, and play word games. As much as I hated the way my brother blew holes in some of my solutions, I have to admit that he made me think further.
I had forgotten about this until I worked for an educational institute that taught essentially the same thing. What is your problem? How do you think you should fix it? Let someone else look at your solution to see what you’ve overlooked. What they were teaching was basic logic. They made diagrams to illustrate the connections between cause and effect, and then they scrutinized the connections to determine whether there were flaws in one’s perception of the current facts or the actual causes. It was very impressive and very expensive, but essentially it was the same scientific method I first encountered in seventh grade. Just think how much money some clients could have saved if they had paid attention in school!
Unfortunately, “what if” in the past is usually just fiction. The value of “what if” in the past is to demonstrate what not to do next time!
One reason “what if” works so well is that, when you can write it out or illustrate it on paper, obvious discrepancies pop up. From geometry class I recalled the concept of reducing a premise to an absurdity. “If a, then b,” and you follow the path until you get something like “therefore 1 = 2.” Since you know that’s impossible (1 does not = 2), you also know there is either something wrong with your original premise or else something wrong with your logic.
A practical example of an absurdity resulting from ignoring the “what if” actually occurred in the home company of the concept. (Jacki abound everywhere.) A large-scale promotional mailing was to be sent out. The constraints of the project involved (1) assembly – four or five items to be stuffed into each envelope – and (2) time – replies were to be returned by a given date, so that the material must be sent several weeks earlier.
The mailing manager, looking at the scope of the project, immediately requested permission to assign overtime. Her supervisor, trying to save the overtime, suggested she assemble a few and calculate just how much time it took. (If only the supervisors had thought of that earlier! But “if only” is the same as “what if” in the past – just fiction.) The mailing manager did so, and reported back: “My staff and I can do this if we work thirty-six hours a day.” Oops.
But thinking ahead has some less obvious uses, techniques that I’ve been subconsciously practicing for years. Are you apprehensive about going somewhere, interviewing, making a phone call? Rehearse what you’re going to do and say. Suppose you say “A.” The other guy may say “B” or “C.” You can prepare a possible reply to “B” and a different one to “C.” (Of course, if he says “D,” I end up saying “gee, I never thought of that.”) Although there are times when you can just wing it, thinking through a couple of alternate scenarios can give you a certain sense of security.
Just recently, it occurred to me that this is why some people become actors. Once you’ve learned your lines, you know what you’re supposed to do; it can give you a real sense of security. There are times when I think I’d like to be an actor myself. And then I remember that I’d rather write my own lines.
Do you realize that etiquette is based on the same idea? There are “prefabricated” responses to all the common situations you may encounter. When you’re introduced to someone, you say, “Glad to meet you,” or some version of that. When some fellow gets engaged; you say, “Congratulations!” (To the lady you say, “best wishes.” It’s tacky to congratulate her on snagging her guy.) On hearing that someone died, you’ll say, “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Yes, there’s a lot of stuff to learn, and there are some special occasions when there’s extra protocol. But the purpose of the whole deal is to make people comfortable – both you and the people with you. Certainly, you can’t go through life avoiding weddings and funerals because they make you ill at ease.
Lots of people try to do just that, because no one ever taught them how to behave. They decide that “all that junk” doesn’t apply to them. Does it improve anything? I don’t think so; the people who ignore manners are still uneasy. They just don’t know why. One of the problems, of course, is the more general one that standards deteriorate through the generations. If your parents didn’t teach you how to behave, what are you going to teach your kids?
All of this is related to the Jonah concept that I’ve mentioned earlier and will undoubtedly talk about again.
