Here’s another interesting term: “Hedging your bet”. It means betting against your main gamble, to limit your risk. That way, if your original bet fails, you recover some of the money from those other bets. Generally, it also means that you’re refusing to fully commit to one idea, to avoid being wrong.

My life used to be entirely governed by bet-hedging. To lessen the risk of looking foolish when doing anything new or strange, I’d do it in a half-assed manner. this was supposed to broadcast to everyone “hey, I already know that I look ridiculous so there’s no need for you to point it out”. It was a kind of pre-emptive strike designed to deter criticism.

I was perpetually in a state of fear, expecting a torrent of negative feedback to come hurtling at me even though, in retrospect, there was never any such salvo sent my way. It’s strange that I’ve been so brittle to criticism when I’ve received so little of it: let’s chalk it up to the chasm of low self-esteem that I have almost entirely escaped from. And, as an interesting side-effect, now that I acknowledge that I may be somewhat of an interesting and compelling person with real potential, I kind of want to do a good job at things. And this means that I have to stop hedging my bets.

Here’s a recent example of partial commitment that I witnessed at the medical scool last week. I was working as a practice patient for the first year med students, and they were practicing their interview skills on me.  This particular patient had a migraine that was exacerbated by light, so I shielded my eyes and feigned great distress when put under a bright light. The student proceeded with the interview, but never made any attempt to change the lighting level of the room. When he called a time-out to discuss strategy with his fellow students, they brought up the light, and he replied “I didn’t know that I was allowed to turn the lights down”. They then suggested that he pretend to turn the lights down (evidently none of them felt empowered enough to just dim the lights. Way to think inside the box, guys). His response to the suggestion of pretending was “I thought this was medical school, not acting school”. This young, would’be doctor, was only partially committed to the exercise. Yes, it was all pretend. I wasn’t really suffering from a migraine, we were sittiin in a classrom, not a doctor’s office, and there were students and teacher in the room. He could have chosen to accept the artificiality of the situation and act as if it were all real, but he didn’t, and I think he missed the opportunity to learn a little bit more from the scenario.

If I have to go back to an old proverb (and it seems like I always do) it would be : “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well”. If you have decided that you’re going to take part in an activity, any activity, then commit to it. Put an honest, enthusiastic effort into it, no matter how silly it will make you look. If you can’t do it like you mean it, then sit this one out and try again when your courage wells up again.

I know that I spend a lot of time here, postulating wildly unsupported speculations and theories. It’s fun and I will keep doing it. But, I have a piece of genuine, 100% certain to be correct, advice:

Do different things.

Yes, it’s underwhelming at first, but give me a moment to explain. Our strongest evolutionary ability, our trump card in the face of adversity, is our ability to adapt.  The variety of situations and challenges that we can suddenly rise to overcome is astounding: we went to space, for example.

And that adaptability is issued to each and every person at birth. The trick is, you won’t have any idea on what you can accomplish, or what you’re gifted at doing, until you get into the mix and experiment.

Over the last 30+ years, the popular culture ideal of life has been one of routine and predictability: decades spent in the job you were trained to do, with no alarming changes of course. And for many people, they will end up in that position. Fine, if that’s what you’re good at. But don’t settle into that rut without a doing a little personal exploration first. The thing you’re great at may not be anything that you have studied or practiced or planned to do at all.

I could give you a long list of examples , people who have followed their curiosity and ended up in a much different place than they expected, but I will focus on one remarkable fellow: Dr. Adrian Owen.  Dr. Owen started his academic career in psychology. Psychology led to psychiatry, which led to neuroscience, which led to a meeting with a woman named Kate. (Kate’s story). Because Adrian followed his curiosity, he found this woman. He connected to her, and he saved her from unending silence. Now, Dr. Owen is the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at UWO, working with his team to expand our understanding of human brain function and awareness.

 

For the last couple of days, I have been agitated and ornery, ready to argue with everything I don’t agree with. And, as you would suspect, I tend to find A LOT of things disagreeable when I am in such a mood. I could have spent the entire fighting with people. I tried to vent my spleen harmlessly into the atmosphere by just tweeting my complaints to no one in particular, which felt like yelling at the clouds for being too fluffy.

It added to my frustration that I knew the people I wanted to argue with weren’t actually the source of my testiness. Oh, sure, they were all wrong and I was totally right in every way as I always am, but the arguments were symptoms, not the cause.

And after digging through the pile of sour emotions, I found the source: a busy week ahead of me. I’m working as a standardized patient (SP) next Saturday, a 12 hour marathon acting session where any factual detail I mess up could lead to a would-be doctor failing that question, which could cause him or her to fail the doctor certification exam. Stressful, but I’ve done it before and it’s not too big of a challenge. But then, on Thursday, I was offered another 3 days of SP work for the ‘introduction to interview skills’ class at the medical school. Being super short on money, I leapt at the chance right away. this additional SP work means I now have 4 character histories to memorize and keep straight this week. 4 different dudes with different illnesses, different families, etc… Sounds kind of hard. Plus, I don’t know the particular order or process of the intro class, and the lack of clear detail and instruction is amplifying my frustration.

And is that enough stress? Not for this guy! I’m going apple picking for the London Food bank today, which I’m looking forward to, don’t get me wrong, but it is another scheduled activity to juggle in my tiny brain. And, I’ve volunteered to schedule a tour of the GTA for a Liberal Party presidential candidate, and trying to coordinate these groups is like trying to herd cats via email. Tick tick tick, there’s only so much time before the GTA tour starts. But like any volunteer-driven organization (and make no mistake, political parties are volunteer-driven nonprofits) you can’t hurry or push the members too forcefully or they just won’t show up.

And I’m pitching an article to every newspaper and magazine I can think of, hoping to make a little cash when I go to the big Liberal convention in January, if I can find a way to get there on the ultra-cheap. And I want to write a newsletter for the riding association this week, and I’m going to an event on Wednesday night, and I need to exercise before my pants explode at the seams from my increasing bulk. Oh, and somebody told me a long time ago that I’m also working on a novel. Wonder how that’s going?

The real question for me is, have I always hated being busy and therefore avoided it with all of my energy, or am I getting re-acclimitized to busyness after spending the last 2 years running at a leisurely kid speed? Either way, I’m going to put a concerted effort into transforming this displeasure into a positive sensation. If the future works out the way I want it to, I’m going to be increasingly busy: I need to develop the organizational and coping skills to handle it. But I still reserve my right to shout at passing cars or mutter at other drivers on the road about their poor driving choices.