Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Factor of 10

Why is change so hard?
One reason is that we are hardwired to see what we have seen before, hear what we have heard before and think what we have thought before. Homeostasis is the neurological and chemical tendency to maintain the status quo.
That's why the educational research shows that it requires 10 times the psychic energy to unlearn something as to learn something.
So any learning that doesn't "fit" our previous information is difficult. That applies to simple cognitive data (the price is wrong) or the muscles needed to learn to thread a needle, shoot a free throw or drive a car.
Practice does not make perfect: it makes consistency. Practicing doing it wrong makes you do it wrong more consistently. Watching Fox news makes you perfectly Republican. Watching Bill Maher makes you perfectly angry.
Reading all sides of a question is tiring. But that's the way to go.

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