Mental Traps_ The Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life - Andre Kukla [31]
A proverb on our side for a change: the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
If a company of angels came down to escort us to Heaven, we would undoubtedly procrastinate. For how can we make a clean break with the past when there are so many loose ends to tie up? We’re only one semester away from our degree. The business is just beginning to make money. We’ve almost finished reading War and Peace. Of course we want to go to Heaven. But it would be so much more convenient to postpone our trip until everything is settled. Then we can enter into our new estate with a clear mind.
But everything is already settled and always has been. The task before us is never more than one moment long. A moment later, we may be required to continue with what we’re doing now. But that isn’t our present concern. To be sure, we have ideas about what we will have to do in the future. But until the moment comes, these plans are no more than working hypotheses. Tomorrow everything may be entirely different.
We don’t accumulate obligations. They come one at a time, and the previous one is canceled as soon as the next one takes effect. Our business is always already settled, our slate is always clean. There’s no need to keep the angels waiting.
e fall into the trap of division when we try to attend to two things at once. We participate in a conversation with one ear while at the same time trying to solve a financial problem that’s been preying on our mind. Just as our financial musings draw close to a conclusion, the conversation turns to us—and the delicate structure of our thought is scattered to oblivion. When we return to the problem, we have to reconstruct the previously established results. At the same time, our contribution to the conversation is very boring.
The idea of doing two things at once needs some clarification. In a sense, we’re always doing many things at the same time without suffering any ill effects. We continue to breathe while we’re eating; we don’t have to stop walking to look at the scenery. In these cases, however, at least one of the two activities doesn’t require conscious attention. When we walk, we don’t have to be continuously deciding to lift one leg and then the other. The proper sequence of events runs its course automatically. So long as they’re automatic, we can perform any number of simultaneous acts. There seems to be no limit to our ability to turn skilled performances into automatized routines. An experienced automobile driver can get herself home in one piece, evidently stopping at every red light, while all the time absorbed in the contemplation of her business affairs. The sight of her own house suddenly looming before her sometimes takes her completely by surprise. And a trained pianist can play a creditable tune while chatting with friends.
But it’s a basic law of the mind that we can’t consciously attend to two things at once. Strictly speaking, attention is indivisible. When we try to be conscious of two things, it may appear that we’re allotting a portion of our attention to each. But closer introspection reveals either (1) that the whole of consciousness is being made to shift back and forth between the two activities, or (2) that one of the activities is relegated to the unconscious, automatic mode of operation. Let’s look at each of these two possibilities in turn.
If the sequence of thoughts relating to activity A is represented by A1, A2, A3, and A4, and the thoughts relating to activity B are B1, B2, B3, and B4, the attempt to think them both at the same time results in a mixed stream of ideas that looks like this:
A1, A2, B1, A3, B2, B3, A4, B4
These oscillations from one topic to the other may, however, be so rapid that we have the illusion of simultaneity.