Not everything you’ve been taught is true

Growing up, we’re taught to behave.

You shouldn’t hold your hand on fire.

You shouldn’t go to bed too late.

You shouldn’t eat unhealthy.

You shouldn’t abuse alcohol.

I was a kid who’d demand a full explanation when told to do/not to do something. If the grown-ups wouldn’t give a satisfactory answer (e.g. you’ll get burnt) I would go ahead and do things my way. Frankly, little has changed till now and I’m working to preserve it.

While many of these rules laid upon us are true and necessary (you’ll actually get burnt), some may be imposed artificially. The reason might be some cultural factor, some false research, old belief, tradition. It might be just as simple as this: it is not common to do otherwise.

You shouldn’t procrastinate.

You shouldn’t talk to others about your problems, it’s not polite/don’t be a bore.

You shouldn’t be too free in your actions, what might others think? (shame culture, hello!)

You shouldn’t show anger.

You should keep everything in its place.

You should categorize.

You should be active and social, it’s rude to be quiet and immersed in yourself.

The fact is, still, we accept those rules equally without questioning them. Subconsciously, we follow our environment. When adult, most of us have already succumbed to the society which dictates norms of behavior. In our daily routine with enormous to do lists, it gets increasingly difficult to behave like the kid who tried to understand the world around him and always asked the question “Why?!”.

I have however noticed a recently emerged line of research that focuses on questioning the accepted rules in the society. Some of the bright authors come to mind.

Adam Grant in his Originals argues that procrastination causes creativity boost. If you don’t rush to finish your task early on, but postpone it a little bit, you’re more likely to come up with more creative ideas. It is because the task is still in your head and your conscious and subconscious works on it continuously. You are observing the world having this particular task in mind, that fine-tunes your attention to the details that might give you some new idea. In other words, it adds a prism to how you perceive the world around you.

Susan Caine, an ex-lawyer and an introvert, had the courage to quit whatever she was forced to do and write a whole book about how introverts are undervalued in our society. She argues that adoration of extroverts and making them a role model is a wrong approach and is actually counter-productive for the whole society. Introverts should be given more place. While they don’t rush to give their opinion on every matter and sparkle here and there, they have an invaluable skill most extroverts lack. They listen. They observe. They have more time to think. That is not to say extroverts are bad, of course they are not! The point is there is no and should be no role model in these matters. Everyone is just the way they are and all of them are necessary for a productive society.

Another daring author, Tim Harford in his book “Messy” argues that tidiness is not always good. To be organised is all we hear since childhood. However, the author claims people become robotic, uncreative and even unproductive. He enumerates multiple examples when messy proves better than tidy. The most fascinating is that of Building 20 of MIT. This was the sort of building where they put researchers who they didn’t have other place to assign. It was built in WWII as temporary one for some research and was so ugly that it just cried “Messy” in your face. The building was designed in a way that was really flexible, every researcher could do their own wiring, remove walls and even whole floors without any permission, procedure or supervision. This freedom helped the most brilliant ideas to become successful projects. The rooms in the building were enumerated in a messy illogical way, and people would bump into each other or walk into a wrong room often. These gave boost for new collaborations and those give birth to new, interdisciplinary studies and more inventions. Nobel Prize winners emerged from this building. But one needn’t even go too far with MIT examples to understand messy is right for creativeness. Have you ever seen a painter’s studio? I bet it was anything, but organized.

Each of these books tries to break a different rule proving the opposite may be pretty good as well and even better.

But they all have one lesson in common for reader to take away:

we should question those rules of behaviour that have alternatives that don’t do any harm.

Because besides not doing any harm, these alternatives might actually do good!

These authors are not the only ones, this trend of questioning the status quo is fortunately spreading all over.

I preserved this instinct of mine since childhood: when confronted with a rule of behaviour which does not seem to make sense to me, I’m always tempted to try another way of doing things. Just to see, whether it will work out better.

I follow this pattern, and I invite you to do the same:

1. When confronted with rule of behaviour, try to find out the rationale first

I’m in no way saying go and break all the rules. No. Even if the rule may make no sense to you, there might be a rationale and some logical reason for it you just don’t see. Try to find out where this rule is coming from. Maybe there’s a reason after all.

You would often find a situation where there was a reason once, when the rule was created, but the reason is not there anymore. People just continue to behave and teach to behave by the force of habit.

2. If there is no rationale, think about the alternative behaviour

If the rule still doesn’t make sense, think about how you could change it. What can you try as alternative? Would it be easier to do? Does it have a potential to give better effect?

3. Think about the WORST thing that your alternative behaviour might cause

Because every change is a potential disaster (keep this in mind, everything in the world is interconnected), I would advise to think the worst possible scenario if you implement the alternative behaviour you’ve come up with.

4. Go ahead and try it

If no serious disaster is foreseeable, green light.

5. Don’t stop there, spread all over the world

Once you’ve found out that there’s a better way of doing things, the most difficult task is to actually make people see and change themselves. Be a role model, demonstrate yourself how your life tipped a bit to better. Talk about it, spread it through your network. The change in society won’t be quick, cause people stick to habits and rules. Change is what everyone is talking about and encouraging, but it is also one of the most frightening things there are. It takes stubbornness and perseverance to introduce your new way.

You needn’t even wait to be confronted with some rule for the first time. You could start right now. Think about what you’re doing routinely, by force of habit, without ever having given any thought to it (“but why?..”) and go through this pattern.