Future Imperfect

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures,
only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why?

In a 1989 study by Jason P. Mitchell of Harvard University, when people were asked how much they thought about the past, present and future, they claimed to think most about the future.

However, when researchers actually counted the items that float along in the average person’s stream of consciousness, they found that only 12 per cent of their daily thoughts (or roughly one hour in every eight) were about the future.

This establishes that all of us are part-time residents of tomorrow. All brains‚ human brains, chimpanzee brains, fish brains, bird brains‚ are continuously making predictions about the immediate local and personal future.

Psychologist Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard professor, explains that they do this by using information about current events (‘I smell something’) and past events (‘The last time I smelled this smell, a big thing tried to eat me’) to anticipate the event that is most likely to happen to them next (‘A big thing is about to eat me’). However, such predictions do not require the brain making them to have anything even remotely resembling a conscious thought.

Just as a calculator can put two and two together to produce four without having any thoughts about arithmetic, brains can add past to present to make a future, without ever thinking about either.
So, rather than saying that such brains are predicting, let’s say they are ‘nexting’, i.e. expecting something to happen next, based on what is known and what has happened earlier.

Nexting is not the same as planning the future. Our ability to imagine, anticipate, and make a future is unique to the human brain and what differentiates us from animals. The human brain’s greatest achievement is its ability to imagine objects and episodes that do not exist in the realm of the real, and it is this ability that allows us to think about the future.

And don’t we use ‘nexting’ all the time as a dramatic tool? How else does a playwright or a film director surprise an audience, satisfy an audience, offer them suspense, without their ‘nexting’?
Let’s take an example. 

Read the sentence: Once upon a lime, there was a ring.. The moment your eye read the words “Once upon a..” your mind automatically completes it with the word time. Few of us would notice it; some would pass it off as a printer’s devil. Until we come to “there was a..” which the mind seeks to complete as King but encounters ‘ring’.

This is almost akin to the predictive T9 dictionary on mobile phones, which all of us are familiar with while sms-ing. It follows the predictive text.. just as our brain uses nexting.

When monkeys see a researcher drop a ball down one of several chutes, they quickly look to the bottom of that chute and wait for the ball to re-emerge. If the ball emerges from a different chute than the one in which it was deposited, the monkeys display surprise, presumably because their brains were nexting. Human babies have been shown to have similar traits.

Their brains add what they already know (the past) to what they currently see (the present) to predict what will happen next (the future). When the actual next thing is different from the predicted next thing, both monkeys and babies experience surprise, an emotion we feel when we encounter the unexpected.

Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why?

As Professor Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward.

Because we all fall into the trap of anticipating our future based on past experiences. Metaphorically we are driving our car ahead by looking into the rear-view mirror. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

So create your future by being in the present and forgetting the past. Your mind will help you determine your own positive attitude by shirking off any past burdens.

.
Thought for the Week

“When it comes to the future, 
there are three kinds of people: 
those who let it happen, 
those who make it happen, and, 
those who wonder what happened”
John M Richardson Jr.
(Professor, School of International Service, American University. Washington DC)
.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times

Believe Me

The human brain is pre-programmed to some degree. 
But it is also capable of change

So you have a dream. It could be to get 100 per cent in your exam, to travel the world, break the record for eating rosogullas, buy a cottage in the countryside, any dream.

You will never be short of naysayers. It’s too difficult for you, they will say. Don’t waste your time trying, they will tell you. They may even say your dream is impossible.

Don’t listen to them.

Let’s go back some 60 years or so. In the 1950s, many scientists declared that it was physically impossible to run the mile in less than four minutes. No one ever has, they said, and no one ever will.
On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister proved them all wrong by running the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds.

And in that same year, 37 more athletes broke that misplaced belief and the four-minute barrier. The next year, 300 more did so.

Once someone had proved they could accomplish the impossible, others discovered they could too.
Or take the classic story of the frog who lives in a shallow well. It believes that any body of water larger than its well cannot exist. It looks up at the night sky and sees the moon shining only for it. It thinks it owns that piece of the night sky. Its ‘universe’ is confined to the well. It does not even know that it is living in a well.

DON’T LIMIT YOURSELF
What we expect, what we imagine and what we believe creates our own individual world.

We need to hold beliefs about how the world works throughout our entire life; the brain requires them in order for us to survive. To give you a simple example, we need to expect that others will be nice to us we are nice to them. It helps us to be nice to other people.

However, a belief is an assumed truth. Its intensity could go from an opinion to an unshakeable conviction, but when we ‘believe’ something, we do not question that belief.
Why do we believe what we believe?

Our beliefs begin to develop the moment we are born; to some degree we are pre-programmed to believe in certain ways. However, these ways are shaped by everything we think, feel, and experience over our lifetime.

And sometimes, our beliefs begin limiting us. Everyday examples include:

•  I’m sure I won’t succeed at this particular job, so there’s no point even trying.
•  I know I’m right, so why waste my time listening to any other viewpoints.
•  That person doesn’t like me, so I’m sure he will be mean to me.
  

Because our beliefs are so important to our survival, we have a tendency to hold them very strongly, even when presented with opposing opinions or facts.

But the brain is also capable of changing beliefs if we are open to new ideas and respect other’s beliefs.

Widening our perspective is therefore crucial to our own growth. Looking beyond our confines and understanding the larger world is key to expanding our worldview, and breaking free of the limitations of our thinking mind, and our conditioning.

One of the most effective exercises to this purpose is to ‘think different’. For example, you know a tomato is red. Now, in your mind’s eye ‘see’ a blue tomato or a fluorescent purple one. Do this for at least five different items or situations every day for the next 21 days‚ like imagining your motorbike skiing across the water to avoid road traffic.

After a hundred such ‘sightings’, your brain will become more receptive to beliefs other than yours and make you a more enlightened individual.

This is a basic creative visualisation technique that will not only train you to be more tolerant and respectful of contrary beliefs, it is an excellent exercise in developing your own brain and becoming more creative as well.

.
Thought for the Week

“If you think you can do a thing or, 
think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”
Henry Ford
(Founder of Ford Motor Company)
.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times

The 80/20 Principle

With some creativity, you can apply it to different aspects of your life

In my very first column “Stop thinking so much”, I elaborated on the principle of energy behind each thought and how we could empower our actions by focusing on preferred thoughts.

We have only limited resources, be it our time, money, or attention. To get the most out of them, it is important to invest your resources in the most profitable places.

You may have often heard about the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. Around 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed that 80% of Italy’s wealth was owned by 20% of the population. He then carried out surveys on other countries and found that a similar pattern existed everywhere.

In the 1930s, Quality Management pioneer, Dr. Joseph Juran took it forward by talking about the “vital few and trivial many”. His principle that 20 percent of something was always responsible for 80 percent of the results, became known as Pareto’s Principle or the 80/20 Rule.

The 80/20 rule has become a useful metaphor for project managers who know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of your time and resources.
In business, they say that “80% of your sales comes from 20% of your clients.” It also applies to a variety of other mundane matters: we wear 20% of our favoured clothes about 80% of the time, we spend most of our time with 20% of our acquaintances and so on.

You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything, from the science of management to the physical world. And you’ll find most of your output comes from a few of your tasks.

My favourite 80/20 principle has to do with saying “no”. Most of us take on more than we can handle. If you’re working at capacity, say “no” to that new client. If someone proposes a project that will fall in 80 percent-work-for-20 percent-results category, just say “no”. You can manage that limit and do things well, or you can ignore the limit and do a bad job of everything. The choice is yours.

It is possible to reap rewards in life by applying the 80/20 rule creatively. Students know that 20 percent of their study material takes up 80 percent of study time and that 80 percent of exam questions are drawn from 20 percent of your subject matter. And that you can score 80 per cent of your marks by answering just 20 percent of your question paper.

The argument can be extended to different areas. Twenty per cent of books give you much more value than the other 80 per cent, so they deserve 80 per cent of your time and attention. Likewise, 20% of the content of a book gives 80% of the value. So how do you benefit from this? Identify the critical parts of a book and skip the rest.

Twenty per cent of your skills give 80% of the returns. Thosse ones that give you the most returns are your strengths. It’s important to identify them so that you don’t waste time working on things which give you only small returns.

We all have a different energy cycle that determines when we will be most productive. Some are most productive in the morning while others are effective in the evening. Identify your most productive time and do your most important work in these moments.

The value of the Pareto Principle lies in the fact that it reminds you to focus on the 20 per cent that matters. Of the things you do during your day, only 20 per cent matter. Identify and focus on those things. If something in your planned schedule has to be dropped, make sure it’s not part of that 20 per cent. The idea is to not just work smart but work smart on the right things.

.
Thought for the Week

“The combination of hard work, 
and smart work 
is efficient work”
Robert Half
(Financial Head Hunter)
.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times

It Pays To Oxygenate Your Brain

Ankur Gupta answers readers’ queries and suggests tips

I hope the past few columns on memory enhancement were useful to many readers. You had several interesting questions: are we born with a good memory? Can memory power be enhanced? What is its real potential? Does it have any limits?

Here are two incidents that will serve as answers. In the mid-nineties, scientists predicted that no human could memorise a spoken number of more than 30 digits. But at the 2005 edition of the World Memory Championships in the UK, Clemens Meyer remembered a 188-digit spoken number, and could still recite it five hours later. Backwards.

Memorizing a pack of cards in less than 30 seconds was seen as the memory equivalent of beating the four minute mile in athletics, until, at the 2007 UK Memory Championships, Ben Pridmore memorized a single shuffled deck of playing cards in 26.28 seconds, beating the previous World Record of 31.16 seconds set by Andi Bell.

And now for some questions.

Mohammed Farooq, doing a part time diploma in management studies, complains that he finds it difficult to reproduce what he had read when its exam time. After reading for 10-15 min, he feels sleepy and cannot recall what he’s read even 15 minutes later.

Mohammed, it should come as no surprise to know that our memory power has been on the decline. New technology has been blamed for making us lazy, and thus, forgetful.

But the basic reason why people forget, is that they did not pay attention in the first place.

Unless you have an interest or develop an interest in the subject you are reading, your mind is bound to behave erratically. My previous articles on thoughts and meditation should be of help to you while you work towards taking charge of yourself.

Rohit Mishra - a bridge player, says that with 52 cards in four different colours and various ranks in a deck, he finds it difficult to remember the cards that his opponents discard during a game. How can he do this efficiently, he asks.

Most accomplished bridge players have their own methods of remembering card sequences. In addition to their playing prowess and skills, their memory certainly becomes an important factor in their performance.

In fact, it would interest readers to know that the world memory championships (an organized competition of mental sports in which competitors memorize as much information as possible within a given period of time) are based on remembering random card sequences.

For one such specific technique, please check out http://www.thememorypage.net/cardbase.htm. Readers might also be interested in the technique popularised by Andi Bell (world memory champion for several years) caught on video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-xl7_hdWZo.

Nakul Kohli, who studies law, finds it impossible to do rote learning. He does not underestimate himself when he says he is not able to get high marks as he used to get in his school days. He feels that his concentration levels have gone down. He wants to know if medicines can help.

Nakul, before you even try brain tonics and medicines, think about this famous quote by Voltaire: 

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease”. 

The very fact that you did so well in school could mean that you are going through a temporary phase. Accept that and then work on ways and means of oxygenating your brain better through various pranayam techniques. Keep your brain active through puzzles like Sudoku and the impact will be felt in your learning abilities too.

Vikram Gite, an IT professional, appreciates the various memory improvisation techniques covered in Open Mind, but confesses that he has a problem - he’s simply lazy. If anyone asks him to do some work, personal or official, he feels no interest in doing so. Though he performs the task assigned to him on time, the willingness to do so is not there, he says.

Vikram, many of us experience burnout in whatever we do at some point or phase on our lives. It could be an early warning signal for you to ask yourself whether you are really interested in doing what you are doing and whether your real interests lie elsewhere. And do remember the old adage that says whatever you like doing is never work!

.
Thought for the Week

“There is no such thing as a truly photographic memory - 
there are only people with exceptionally good memory techniques.”
Dr. Gary Small
(Ageing & Memory Expert)
.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times

BuTteR = 914

Find numbers difficult to remember? 
There’s help at hand

Why are numbers so difficult to remember? Because our brain thinks with pictures not with numbers. But if you are particularly bad at memorizing them, perhaps you could try the phonetic system devised by Stanislaus Mink von Wennsshein in the 17th century. 

Because it is easier to remember an image rather than a number like 9256738950, this system converts a number into a word or phrase that forms an image in your mind. The conversion is done by phonetics: certain consonant sounds represent certain numbers and vowels act as fillers. 

So each of the digits from 0 through 9 is assigned a consonant that can be used to form a word that can then be used to form an association and be memorised easily.

This is the standardized mnemonic system used by memory experts, and once this chart is memorized, it can be used for life!

• 0    s, z, soft c     “zero” starts with Z
• 1    t, d     T has one downstroke,
•         d has similar sound
• 2    n     N has two downstrokes
• 3    m     M has three downstrokes
• 4    r     “four” ends with R
• 5    l     in Roman numerals, L = 50
• 6    j, ch, sh, g (soft)     J reversed looks like a 6
• 7    k, c, g (hard)     K can be drawn with two 7’s
• 8    f, v, ph    handwritten F looks like an 8
• 9    p, b     P reversed looks like a 9

Some Rules
The alphabet is strictly phonetic. So the word “rough” should be thought of as RuF and translated into 48.

Repeat letters are not counted. So “BuTteR” translates into B, T and R (only one T) = 914.
Vowels are always ignored, as well as the three consonant sounds W, H and Y. The long word “wheeL” for example, contains just one useful letter: L.

Note that pairs of letters have been grouped together because of their phonetic similarity, such as t and d or p and b. If you are not familiar with phonetics, whisper the word “dog.” Notice that it sounds like “tok”. This is how you can tell which sounds are phonetically similar. 

Take a few minutes to memorize the number alphabet. Write groups of letters in random order on a piece of paper and try to come up with their number. You are now ready to memorize almost any kind of number. 

Once you have selected a word or phrase that represents your number (vivid nouns work better than adjectives or verbs), the last step is to make an association between the words you selected and what you are trying to remember. As emphasised in earlier columns, don’t pick regular, everyday associations. The more bizarre or animated the association, the better you will remember it. 

For example, if you are trying to remember that the number of bones in a hand is 27, convert the number 27 into the word INK. Now associate the word INK with a hand: imagine breaking a pen and ink squirting all over your hands. Don’t think of a little ink - think of a cloudburst of ink pouring onto your hands and spilling onto the floor, eventually covering the whole room. 

Longer numbers can be broken up into two or three such sets. If you want to explore this system further do check out http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTIM_07.htm.

.
Thought for the Week

“Discipline is remembering what you want.”
David Campbell
(Music arranger, composer & conductor, 1608-1674)
.

 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

First published in Gray Matter - The Hindustan Times