We all hear advice like "Live and learn," "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," and "fail faster" (common in the world of business startups, and a good approach to dating). And often, this is good advice. In many cases, to succeed at something requires persistent, sustained and focused effort. But sometimes you should quit. Sometimes you should throw in the towel. Or, stated more positively, take a shortcut.
It's well known that it's often easier to spot and evaluate others' flaws than our own. Perhaps you're an experienced weightlifter, and you see people in the gym exercising ineffectively or even dangerously. Or you watch someone baking a cake with the wrong ingredients, and know it will turn out awful. But it's harder to see when you yourself are doing something wrong.
If you're pretty confident, or completely confident, that doing something will have a specific undesirable result, go around. Take a shortcut. Here's a great recent example, a bit extreme but telling:
“Ex-gay” Christian group shuts down following bombshell apology
Exodus International, the “ex-gay” Christian group with a mission to minister to a “world impacted by homosexuality,” has shut down after 37 years.
Following a Wednesday statement in which Exodus’ president Alan Chambers apologized for “years of undue suffering and judgment at the hands of the organization and the Church as a whole,” Chambers announced the group would close its doors late Wednesday night.
Exodus International had the bizarre idea that gay men could somehow be "converted" to straight through so-called "reparative therapy." Here's the key point: of course we know now that this is nonsense, but we also knew this twenty years ago. And thirty years ago, and much further back, if you were paying attention. Of course, when this group was first founded, people surely told them the idea was nonsense, and worse—insulting and damaging to gay people. But Exodus International didn't listen, and it took thirty years for them to come around.
Go around
You can use the shortcut principle for anything. If you're meeting the same old crowd at the bar every friday night, go to a different bar. If you keep getting injured playing tennis, take a break and try a different sport.
In my interviews for the upcoming book, I heard a common refrain from people who ended long-term relationships: "I wish I had left sooner." If you know someone is not right for you, the sooner you disengage, the sooner you can find someone who is.
Share your shortcut experiences in the comments.
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