Default State
In my experience the default state of human beings seems to be to point out all the challenges, difficulties, and ways that something potentially beautiful can potentially go wrong. There are people out there with incredible ideas. People who are dreaming up ways to change things. They want a brighter future for their friends, their colleagues, or maybe even the whole of humanity. They want to improve their home or their work place, or change a part of their industry, or maybe they have an idea to develop a whole new way of life. And for some reason our default state is to say, "That's going to be really hard to do. Did you think about this? Maybe you should try this instead." We think we are helping. We think we are protecting them. But all we are really doing is defaulting to compromise before they have even begun. We seem to default to accepting less than 100% because we think we won't get what we want anyway. Next time a friend comes to you with an idea, don't point out all the negatives. Don't tell them their potential points of failure. Chances are they have spent days, weeks, months, even years thinking this through. They've scrutinized every detail. They know every possible part that could go wrong and more. They are sharing this idea not because they need your approval or advice. (They'd ask you if they did.) They are sharing it because they are really excited about it and they hope you'll be excited too. And even if you aren't, even if it's something you don't want to help them with or you think is destined to fail, don't say, "Good luck, that's going to be difficult for sure." Say, "Good luck! That's going to be amazing when you finish. I can't wait." Because maybe, just maybe, one day you'll be bragging on Facebook that you know the person who changed the world.
