Splinters work for kindling, but they aren’t appropriate fuel for a roaring fire. Tomato, onion, lettuce, and pickles on a burger are great additions, but they aren’t sufficient vegetable servings for lunch every day unless you double up at another time. Your body burns calories like a fire burns wood, and like that fire, the type of fuel you feed it determines the energy it has available to burn.
Most of us want an abundance of energy so we can breeze through our day feeling fresh and light. Then we eat in ways that make us sluggish and slow. To get our pep back, we use sugar, caffeine, and energy drinks. It’s a vicious cycle.
And it’s just one example. I can give similar examples regarding how medicine is practiced in the west; how math is taught; how research is funded; how policy is set. I don’t know if we were all dropped on our heads as children or what happened, but convoluted, reactionary response seems to have taken the place of thorough strategic planning.
This has not always been true. Take flying for example. Aviation was well thought-out and well planned. Planes flying east would fly 500 feet higher or lower than planes flying west. The whole world would have a standard time clock so that international flights didn’t have to worry about multiple time zones. All plane systems would be built with redundancy. A phonetic alphabet would be used to avoid confusion over radios. Communications would be repeated. Pilots would verbalize control of the aircraft. Checklists would be used. Certifications would be required. Proficiency would be tested. Physicals would be mandatory for licensing. Certain ceilings would be maintained in populated areas. And these are just the beginning.
Then things began to happen that made little sense – TSA screening of passengers became invasive and cumbersome while any Joe Blow could still give a tail number and drive through the gate of an FBO and right onto the taxiways or runways. The 737 MAX failed to give pilots an effective override for a pitch correction assistance system that relied on a single sensor rather than two factors. The resulting 346 lives lost required a revamp, but the process for how the MCAS system was developed and approved echoes the vicious cycle described above.
So, how do we get back to an understanding that splinters should be used for kindling and nutrients are most effective when they come in the form of fresh food in significant quantities?
- Ask questions.
- Improve critical thinking skills.
- Challenge tendency to deny or justify.
- Allow time for healthy endeavors.
- Recognize there is rarely a quick fix without long-term consequences.
- Be thorough.
- Create and/or use systems to assist.
- Be open-minded and willing to adapt.
- Be willing to start over.
If you feel mired in things that don’t make sense, it’s because there are a whole lot of things that don’t make sense. Some you’ll be able to change. Some you’ll have to navigate around. One may become your mission.
However you decide to proceed, be assured all of us can learn and improve.
