Episode 52 What I Learned from Asking the Same Question Again and Again
On New Year’s Eve, me and my friend Jason set out for a mini adventure. We went on the street and asked strangers one question, “If you could change one thing in 2018, what would you change?” We asked nine people, including a couple from San Francisco, a backpacker from Spain, a homeless artist in front of a Starbucks, a couple under Ferris Wheel, a daddy taking daughter in a chocolate shop, a fisherman by the lake, an Uber driver.
We videotaped everything, and made it into a documentary.
Here are six things I learned from this mini adventure:
1. We asked nine people. Nine people answered. People are nicer than you thought.
Well, I can’t ensure everyone will get 100% success rate at any time :) Win people’s trust is one of my strengths.
Later, Jason told me his observation: my gesture of approaching people, how I open a conversation, how I pause after asking questions, how I listen.
But I still think my seemingly innocent chubby face might be the biggest successful factor :D
2. We videotaped everything. No one ever said no. People are more comfortable (to camera, and I believe many other things as well) than you thought.
Even if the daddy who takes his daughter didn’t say “oh please don’t video tape my daughter.”
In life we fear. We are afraid of rejection. Afraid of failure. Afraid of offending people’s privacy, Afraid of being perceived as weird. Many of these fears are only in your head.
3. It’s not what you can do, but what you want to do in life
I know spending New Year’s Eve casually hanging out with friends, eating, shopping, watching movies, sight-seeing, all these usual fun things will not make me most happy. I know creating things (a video, a blog post, or actual physical things), asking awkward but meaningful questions, doing uncomfortable but memorable things, will make me most happy. So it was what I did.
The number one problem of unhappy people is they don’t know what they want to get out of life. Which is not their fault. It is not an easy task.
The number two problem is not able to get what they want.
I apologize if I am being super arrogant here. Growing up, I have never been worried about food, shelter, money. I have never been seriously “off track”, faced with huge crisis. That's why I made the clearly not water tight statement above.
4. A shared life is a better life. Find a way to share your life.
It was not impossible to do it myself. But I believe the documentary project will be way less fun if I did it all by myself.
So, if you have a crazy plan, but don’t have a crazy friend. You just ask someone who like surprises, “Hey, would you like plan or would you like surprise?” This is how I did it.
It ended up a great day, but when he learned about the plan in the morning, he still stressed out lol, and it was too late to say no.
5. People’s thoughts are very diverse. But the diversity does not necessarily relate to their identity, profession, or life status.
We videotaped everything, and made it into a documentary.
Here are six things I learned from this mini adventure:
1. We asked nine people. Nine people answered. People are nicer than you thought.
Well, I can’t ensure everyone will get 100% success rate at any time :) Win people’s trust is one of my strengths.
Later, Jason told me his observation: my gesture of approaching people, how I open a conversation, how I pause after asking questions, how I listen.
But I still think my seemingly innocent chubby face might be the biggest successful factor :D
2. We videotaped everything. No one ever said no. People are more comfortable (to camera, and I believe many other things as well) than you thought.
Even if the daddy who takes his daughter didn’t say “oh please don’t video tape my daughter.”
In life we fear. We are afraid of rejection. Afraid of failure. Afraid of offending people’s privacy, Afraid of being perceived as weird. Many of these fears are only in your head.
3. It’s not what you can do, but what you want to do in life
I know spending New Year’s Eve casually hanging out with friends, eating, shopping, watching movies, sight-seeing, all these usual fun things will not make me most happy. I know creating things (a video, a blog post, or actual physical things), asking awkward but meaningful questions, doing uncomfortable but memorable things, will make me most happy. So it was what I did.
The number one problem of unhappy people is they don’t know what they want to get out of life. Which is not their fault. It is not an easy task.
The number two problem is not able to get what they want.
I apologize if I am being super arrogant here. Growing up, I have never been worried about food, shelter, money. I have never been seriously “off track”, faced with huge crisis. That's why I made the clearly not water tight statement above.
4. A shared life is a better life. Find a way to share your life.
It was not impossible to do it myself. But I believe the documentary project will be way less fun if I did it all by myself.
So, if you have a crazy plan, but don’t have a crazy friend. You just ask someone who like surprises, “Hey, would you like plan or would you like surprise?” This is how I did it.
It ended up a great day, but when he learned about the plan in the morning, he still stressed out lol, and it was too late to say no.
5. People’s thoughts are very diverse. But the diversity does not necessarily relate to their identity, profession, or life status.
So never judge people. Listen to them with open heart.
We interviewed a fisherman by the lake. She is very quiet, very calm. You probably would assume people like her be very self-centric, very into meditation, living in the moment, focusing on NOW, HERE.
When I asked her that question, she started to become very emotional, and said, “I hope there will be less war in the world. I feel very sad every time I see people are still fighting against each other.”
6. The nine answers can be classified into three levels: Personal, Community, World
(1) Is there a “right” way to answer this question?
Probably not. People should say whatever they think is right to them. And in my opinion, it’s this level of authenticity that makes the documentary beautiful.
(2) It’s natural to think from oneself, as represented by the distribution of this answers. But will the world be better if everyone focuses on improving themselves?
Probably not. “Everyone focuses on making him/herself better” won’t hurt the world, in most cases, but there have to be people who think on higher level, actually do things, drive changes, and solve problems.
(3) Then what do we do?
The motto of Stanford: “Change Lives. Change Organization. Change the World.” It has big impact on my life, and is my life principle. But how does it actually work in real life? Do these three things happen simultaneously? Sequentially? If simultaneously, how do we allocate our precious time and attention? If sequentially, how do we know when is the time to move on to the next stage?
There are no right or wrong answers to this question. Here is my thoughts: in every stage of life, all of the three levels should have a weight in life. The mix will change with my priorities in life, capabilities, and resources. Here is one sample answer:
Step One: Make a goal of this mix
I want to spend 40% on making organization better, 40% on making myself better, and 20% on making the world better.
Step Two: Examine how I actually spend my time
I listed out how my weekday and weekend hours are spent. I realized except for sleep, rest, social, misc (shower, grocery, cooking, having meal, etc. which takes surprisingly big amount of time!), I only have 62 productive hours (did you know that each week has 168 hours). 65% of my time is on organization (i.e. working), 25% on self, and 10% on the world.
Step Three: Reflection. Adjust goal. Adjust weekly routine
I realized how “unrealistic” my goal is, how far is my reality from my perceived reality. I realized many of evening hours were not spent wisely – I was not working, not reading, not thinking, not really resting, not sleeping. I may just be watching pointless YouTube videos, too lazy to get up, too lazy to open a book, too lazy to take a shower and move toward sleeping.
I want to
(1) adjust my goal to 60% organization, 25% self, 15% world.
(2) decrease misc hours by sleeping and getting up earlier.
(3) insert new productive tasks into my morning routine.
*****
My yoga teacher once said, to achieve seeming effortless balance, you need a lot of strength. To obtain the strength, you need to learn all the disciplines and techniques.
We interviewed a fisherman by the lake. She is very quiet, very calm. You probably would assume people like her be very self-centric, very into meditation, living in the moment, focusing on NOW, HERE.
When I asked her that question, she started to become very emotional, and said, “I hope there will be less war in the world. I feel very sad every time I see people are still fighting against each other.”
6. The nine answers can be classified into three levels: Personal, Community, World
World
* World peace
* World peace
Community
* Less homeless
* People be less on their phone
Self
* Be more patient
* Judge people less
* Be more positive
* Leave this country
* Go home in Spain
(1) Is there a “right” way to answer this question?
Probably not. People should say whatever they think is right to them. And in my opinion, it’s this level of authenticity that makes the documentary beautiful.
(2) It’s natural to think from oneself, as represented by the distribution of this answers. But will the world be better if everyone focuses on improving themselves?
Probably not. “Everyone focuses on making him/herself better” won’t hurt the world, in most cases, but there have to be people who think on higher level, actually do things, drive changes, and solve problems.
(3) Then what do we do?
The motto of Stanford: “Change Lives. Change Organization. Change the World.” It has big impact on my life, and is my life principle. But how does it actually work in real life? Do these three things happen simultaneously? Sequentially? If simultaneously, how do we allocate our precious time and attention? If sequentially, how do we know when is the time to move on to the next stage?
There are no right or wrong answers to this question. Here is my thoughts: in every stage of life, all of the three levels should have a weight in life. The mix will change with my priorities in life, capabilities, and resources. Here is one sample answer:
Step One: Make a goal of this mix
I want to spend 40% on making organization better, 40% on making myself better, and 20% on making the world better.
Step Two: Examine how I actually spend my time
I listed out how my weekday and weekend hours are spent. I realized except for sleep, rest, social, misc (shower, grocery, cooking, having meal, etc. which takes surprisingly big amount of time!), I only have 62 productive hours (did you know that each week has 168 hours). 65% of my time is on organization (i.e. working), 25% on self, and 10% on the world.
Step Three: Reflection. Adjust goal. Adjust weekly routine
I realized how “unrealistic” my goal is, how far is my reality from my perceived reality. I realized many of evening hours were not spent wisely – I was not working, not reading, not thinking, not really resting, not sleeping. I may just be watching pointless YouTube videos, too lazy to get up, too lazy to open a book, too lazy to take a shower and move toward sleeping.
I want to
(1) adjust my goal to 60% organization, 25% self, 15% world.
(2) decrease misc hours by sleeping and getting up earlier.
(3) insert new productive tasks into my morning routine.
*****
My yoga teacher once said, to achieve seeming effortless balance, you need a lot of strength. To obtain the strength, you need to learn all the disciplines and techniques.
Thank you for your attention, as always.
When you have your strength, and dream and courage be with you.
When you are tired and hurt, may joy and peace be with you.
*****
Here is a first draft of the documentary. A final version will be posted here soon.
*****
Here is a first draft of the documentary. A final version will be posted here soon.
Comments
Post a Comment