Why are we so prone to pendulum swings and over-correction?
For instance, you’re driving down the highway and maybe you’re
listening to the game or distracted by the warning light on the dash (I’m going
to give you credit for not being one of those moronic miscreants who texts
while driving) and you suddenly realize you have drifted a little too far to
the left or right. Most of us don’t drift back to correction at the same speed;
we jerk the wheel to get back there as quick as we can, thereby doing something
almost as dangerous as the drift we intended to correct.
And what about those pendulum swings? I’m not saying that
the “middle ground” is always the preferable ground, but often the best tack is
the one that falls between the extremes. We think we’re too fat, so rather than
eat sensibly we starve ourselves. We get
disgusted with some show on TV, so we ban TVs from the house.
I think the reasons are two-fold: one, it’s just a knee-jerk
reaction; and B, it’s easy. It’s a lot easier to just cut out all sugar than go
to the trouble of smart-shopping, reading labels, balancing my meals, etc.
To walk on that middle path, I’m going to have to do some
thinking. It’s a lot easier to just be “all in” whether “all in” is something
worth being or not.
