Tag Archives: Victor Frankl

Pause… and reflect

I’ve written before about the gap of time between stimulus and response that Victor Frankl called “choice.” In modern society and a world of technology, those moments and fractions of time seem to dwindle to nothingness as we embrace the faster and the quicker and the immediate gratification. The famous line from Jurassic Park comes to mind… “so preoccupied with whether or not [we] could, [we] didn’t stop to think if [we] should.” Now it seems that we have even less time to consider.

I find myself rushing around so fast sometimes that I don’t even notice and fall into a pattern of just doing and choosing with no thought or reflection about alternatives. I know I’m not alone. I see this pattern mirrored all around me by individuals, groups, corporations, and institutions. Recently, in a meeting, I heard a colleague comment that your first thought is what society tells you, and your second is from the person you want to become. That comment really resonated with me, but I took it a bit further. I interpreted it to mean that your first reaction (whether internal or external) in any situation is usually a reflection of what you have been taught or programmed to think by culture and society; the second response that occurs to you is a reflection of the struggle to become: Something more, someone better, someone memorable, or someone important…  The problem for most people is that the time frame to have those two reactions, responses, or thoughts has been drastically decreased… artificially. The instantaneous response expectation has dissolved that window for choice and almost eliminated the opportunity “think again”. So, what does that do to our struggle to become? What room does that leave to strive for better than reaction?

No one wants to halt the tide of progress (or be accused of being the factor that slows it). So, no one wants to say, “Maybe we should take a moment to think…” or “Perhaps we should stop and consider all the options before we make a hasty decision…” So, instead, we rush right along with what seemed-to-be-a-good-idea-at-the-time; only to be followed by a quick brake and reset to try something else when it turns out not to be the best idea. Oh, the time that could be salvaged (and possibly harm avoided) if someone… possibly myself… had taken a moment, quick inventory, and possibly not leaped before looking.

And… rereading, that paragraph sounds really negative and like I am somehow the victim of all this mad, mad, world of faster and “Right NOW!” That is not true at all. I am as much to blame for my chaotic and knee-jerk responses to the world around me as anyone. It is super easy to get caught up in the flow of traffic and find that I’m way beyond a safe pace for me. I am not what I would consider slow, but I’ve found myself more and more reactive instead of responsive, acting on autopilot instead of considerate and conscious decisiveness. That’s a problem.

What do I mean by that? Well, I’ll tell ya… When I respond, I should do so in my own time, at my own pace, and with consciousness of the choice. When I react, I’m often mindlessly doing something to stop a negative stimulus in my life without any other thought than “MAKE IT BLOODY STOP ALREADY!!!” and occasionally “I have to answer all of these requests NOW or DIE!!!”

So, um… the truth is, I would say that maybe 1 to 5% of the conscious decisions and actions that I’m required to take (excluding commutes by motorized vehicle and crossing the street in heavy traffic) on any given day could result in death. Once upon a time, that number might have been slightly higher, but these days… not so much. So, if I do not actually answer, respond, or act upon requests with immediacy implied by the requester… no one will die. Seriously. Nobody. The people making the requests might not agree, but then, they are stuck in that immediate gratification loop that everything has to be done and done NOW. Chances are that no one will actually be dramatically inconvenienced, despite their prognostications and over-dramatized estimations to the contrary. The other bit about making it stop? Well, that is one of those stimulus response systems that seems to be programmed into humans like classical conditioning. Most parents will recognize it. That voice that becomes a repeated “Mom, Mama, Mommy, Mum, MAAAA!”… in truth the response is not often the wisest or well thought out to this particular prompting, now is it? But that is precisely how my make-it-stop nerve gets overused. Again, I can find other ways of making it stop than giving in, addressing the unnecessarily repetitive prompts, or shooting the subject in question. I can actually ignore it, shut it off, stop reading my email, and put my phone on airplane mode. This might actually not go over so well initially (think what happens when you try to extinguish behavior), but it might also teach others to exercise a bit of patience on their own.

Once upon a time… when someone needed to reach me, they had to call. If I wasn’t there, they had to try again later. Once I had an answerphone, they could leave a message, but they still had to wait for me to call back when I was available. Mobile technology has somehow given everyone the impression that each and every one of us should be available at anytime, anywhere. Vacations, hours of rest, travel times are all no excuse for failure to respond. Well… that shouldn’t be the case. We all need the opportunity to be unavailable, but we also need to be unavailable without the guilt. Yes, I said guilt. Along with this assumption that everyone be available at any time has come this feeling that if we don’t answer (calls, texts, IMs, emails) we will lose out. I’ve actually seen this as an identified and defined phenomenon: FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). I think that the term is supposed to apply to social context and people with unhealthy attachments to their social media accounts, but it can be more generally applied, I think. We fear that if we don’t respond that a friend will no longer like us, a potential romance will pass us by, a job opportunity will be missed, or (worse) we will get fired.

Why have we gotten to this point? Why do we feel that we consistently have to be the first hand on the buzzer? Why, why, why? And what happened to that momentary space between stimulus and response? In many instances in the rush, rush, rushing of our lives to gratify a stimulus by a response, we fall back on automatic and the first thing that pops into our heads. Sometimes, that might not be so bad… if you are taking a multiple choice standardized test, maybe… The rest of the time, it’s rather awesome to maybe think again. Get a second opinion from a less reflexive self. Challenge that impulse to immediate reaction and try to work towards that better self you wish to become. Instead of rushing to the first response, pause and reflect. You might be more pleased with the results.

SERIES: EMAIL DISEASES – HOW THEY AFFECT YOUR LIFE AND HOW YOU CAN AVOID THEM (ISSUE 7: Senders Remorse and other ugly rashes)

sendersremorse

One of the most amazing things about technology and the advances in communication is that we can impart messages and important information across our planet or even outside the planet (remember that we do speak with the people on the space station and get regular reports from that poor little rover on Mars that sings happy birthday to itself) in an almost unimaginable brief span of time. When you think about the fact that people used to have to deliver messages by carrying them by foot travel, equine travel, or other conveyance, this is an astounding evolution. One of the scariest things about technology… is the speed with which you can decimate relationships, reputations, and revenue with that same speed.

So, why is that speed and efficiency scary? Most of the time we, in the modern world, are consistently frustrated, irritable, and just plain pissy when we have to accommodate delays in any form or fashion. We’ve become very inured to instant gratification and immediate access to information. The pace at which we live our lives is breakneck and the tempo is constant without pause or quiet most of the time. However, I’m not discussing my displeasure with the way our society has ceased living in the present in this particular instance. Instead, I wish to go back to what I was saying about the speed with which we are able to send and receive communication via technology.

It is absolutely a miracle of modern contrivance, and it is more than useful to be able to stay in contact with people at long distances. However, the lack of pause and delay has shortened a particular gap between thought and action that previously gave opportunity for choice sandwiched somewhere in the middle. In this episode of Email Diseases, we are talking about what I will call “Sender’s Remorse.” Picture, if you will, employee Joe who is possibly having a rough day. He may have been cut off in traffic or spilled his coffee. Perhaps he has had a perfectly reasonable morning, but then upon reaching the office… [cue dramatic music]… he opens his email to perceive a particularly peevish request from Susan the boss. In this email, she is asking for the umpteenth time information that Joe has spent many hours collecting and collating, parsing and construing to Susan multiple times… but she either cannot lay hands upon said information, is too busy to look (especially when she has Joe that she can just ask again), or never read it the first time. Susan may suffer from a number of previous diseases covered in this series, and she may literally just not recall that he has sent this same information multiple times. But Joe does recall… He feels dismissed and that his hard work has been unappreciated and generally ignored. He is angry and irritable and has had a horrible morning already and is wearing the coffee to prove it, thereby increasing his lack of tolerance. Joe hits the Reply button before he has a moment to think. He types a scathing message in response to the request (possibly using inappropriate italics or SHOUTY CAPITAL LETTERS). He types with the speed and alacrity of a rapid firing machine gun. There! You clueless wonder, maybe now you will get the message through your remarkably impermeable cranium!!! and hits Send before any other impulse in his own cranium might have a chance to make other choices. This rash action may potentially set off a chain of email back and forth with unpleasant outcomes. If Susan the boss is so inclined and read negative attitude or tone into Joe’s response, there may be disciplinary action in poor Joe’s future. All because of hitting that Send button instantaneously.

The other aspects of an inadvertent, rashly Send could be incomplete information and failure to address all points of a request. This can also be linked to other email diseases such as skimming or non-reading. When we move with speed but lack of diligence and forethought, we can occasionally find that points are left unaddressed and certain communications can be misinterpreted, like poor Joe and his rash rapidity. With just a pause to think how his words might be received and perceived by his recipient, he might have elected to compose a different retort.

Victor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy, said “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Technology has shortened that gap to a mere fraction of what we used to have. It therefore becomes a conscious decision on the part of us in our daily lives to be more deliberate and to take the time to be conscious of our choices… even in something so simple as a phrase in an electronic message.

In a recent training conference, I heard a colleague talking about the “rule of three.” Now, I know there are several different rules of three out there, but the two most common of these with regards to electronic communication go like this:

  • Once the email chain goes back and forth three times, pick up the phone. It’s time to talk.
  • Read every email three times before hitting send: First for spellcheck and grammar; second for intent and content; and third for tone.

While it may seem to be picking nits and taking more time, it may save reputations, inbox from email jail, and good working relationships. So, the moral of the story would seem to be, in order to avoid sender’s remorse, pause before hitting Send to allow that intervening gap between the stimulus and our response for choice to be conscious, deliberate, and well thought.