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How to Anticipate the Unexpected
by Philip Yaffe
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According to the adage,
“Travel is broadening”. In other words, when you leave your home and
go somewhere else, your mind will expand because of the differences you
will see. For me, the most valuable, mind-expanding differences are not
the big ones that you might be prepared for by reading and education. They
the little things that you would never even consider, so that they take
you completely by surprise.
When I was growing up in Los Angeles, I never traveled because my parents
were small business owners and had no time to go away for vacation. I was
in fact 16 years old the first time I set foot outside of
Southern
California. After 10 years of planning and disappointments, we finally
drove across the country to visit relatives who lived in a small town in
Maine. |
A few days before our departure, I came down with a severe case of
mononucleosis. This illness makes you incredibly weak and constantly
tired, so all you want to do is sleep. We just about decided not to go,
but since it was a trip we had been planning for decade, we decided to
give it a try.
After three days on the road (I had spent most of the time sleeping on the
back seat), we arrived in St. Louis, where we also had relatives.
St. Louis is on the Mississippi River and this was early July. If you know
anything about St. Louis, you know it is an excellent place not to be in
summer. It was extremely hot and extremely humid. However, since this was
the first time -- and probably the last time -- I would ever see these
relatives, I spent the next four days touring the city, picnicking,
swimming, playing tennis, and engaging in a host of other strenuous
activities.
Within a half-hour after leaving St. Louis, I completely collapsed and
slept almost constantly the next two days before arriving in New York.
The four days in St. Louis were a revelation. Before arriving, I could
hardly move; after leaving I could hardly move. But while there, I was
active beyond all
expectations. I simply had never imagined just how much a person can
actually achieve through sheer desire and will power.
A couple of weeks later, we were visiting with my Aunt and Uncle in Maine.
One day my brother and I were walking around the town just to see what it
looked like. We went into a local supermarket. Our attention was drawn to
a big display of watermelons. Two things struck us. First, they didn’t
look like the watermelons we had in California. Instead of being big and
oval, they were long and sausage-like. But the real shocker was the price.
You will have to adjust the figures; after all, this was a half-century
ago (1958). The sign said 10 cent a pound. My brother let out a cry of
dismay. “Ten cents a pound! That’s robbery!”
A man who was standing a short distance away came over and asked him,
“Tell me son, where are you from?” “California.” “And what do you pay for
watermelons this time of year?” “Oh, about 2 cents a pound, sometimes 1
cent a pound.”
The man looked my brother straight in the eyes and said, “Little boy,
you’re lying to me. You’re lying. You’re lying”. It was a case of total
incomprehension. The man simply couldn’t believe how cheap watermelons
were in California. And we simply couldn’t believe how expensive they were
in Maine. However, the pièce de résistance of my revelations happened a
few days later. We were on a lake, swimming, boating and barbequing when a
thunder storm broke. Everyone ran into the house to get out of the rain.
Everyone but me. I was transfixed, literally rooted to the spot. I stood
there with the rain pouring down on me for what seemed like several
minutes before I too finally ran into the house.
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Why this strange reaction? You need to understand that in
Los
Angeles, it is normal that not a single drop of rain falls in the city
from about the first of May until the end of September. Because it was the
only thing I had ever experienced, I grew up believing the word “summer”
literally meant “hot and dry”. It was August, and it was raining! To me,
this was against nature. It was like the sun one day suddenly rising in
the west
and setting in the east, rather than rising in the east and setting in the
west as it had always done.
When I got back to Los Angeles, I was a changed person. Being a
scientist by nature -- I loved mathematics and physics -- I was
naturally skeptical about things. But I had not fully realized just
how much there was to be skeptical about. |
Having experienced
somewhere else, I better understood that things that seem normal and
natural in one environment can be bizarre and unnatural in another.
This revelation has served me well ever since. It certainly helped me a
few years later when I spent two-and-a-half years in Tanzania, in
the East African bush. This was an environment not only different from Los
Angeles, but different almost beyond imagination. I virtually lived in a
mud hut, suffered through a drought, saw leprosy, and contracted both
malaria and dysentery.
But the most surprising thing was, Tanzania had a one-party socialist
government. Being a devout believer in multi-party, free enterprise
democracy, this was an anathema to me. However once on site, I discovered
that Tanzania's one-party, socialist state not only worked, but for this
poor developing country, this "bizarre" form of government was absolutely
necessary.
The world is full of unexpected things. The best way to deal with them
is to “anticipate the unexpected”. In others words, we must always
be prepared to examine something that surprises us before criticizing or
rejecting it. Otherwise, we are likely to make some serious mistakes of
judgment.
I think the importance of
this lesson was best summed up by a country preacher in the American Deep
South. In his distinctive southern drawl, he once told his congregation:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that causes problems. It’s what you do know
that just ain’t so.” Amen.
For further information, contact:
Philip Yaffe, Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 660 0405
phil.yaffe@yahoo.com
phil.yaffe@gmail.com
Contributed By
Philip
Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal
and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in
good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently
published book In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing &
Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers
in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).
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