Simon Sinek and Dr. Ellen Langer discuss why 1+1 doesn't always equal 2. One pile of laundry plus another is still one pile, not two. Langer argues that recognizing context in even basic math questions makes us more present and gives us agency instead of defaulting to automatic answers.
Okay, don't feel put on the spot. How much is 1 1? I'm going to take a wild guess and go 2.
No, not always. So if you were to add 1 pile of laundry plus 1 pile of laundry, 1 1 is 1. If you add 1 cloud plus 1 cloud, 1 1 is 1. So in the real world, it doesn't equal 2. And this is very important because every time we give an answer based on our absolute understanding of things, we're no different from robots. And you want to be different from a robot because robots don't fall in love. They're not happy. They don't have any agency. Now, if somebody were to ask you, how much is 1 plus 1? All of a sudden you have a choice that you didn't have before. And that means you're going to be present. You're going to pay attention to context and then decide.
When you ask the question, of course, what my mind does is it goes back to second grade, whatever it was. And I can see the very academic 1 1 on a blackboard. And I think what you rightfully said, which is in the real world, it depends.
So when you don't know, you don't know, you pay attention. It's just that simple. Right. And when you recognize that nobody knows, then everything becomes new again. That's top-down. You just accept you don't know, and then you're gonna be present. Bottom-up is walk outside, place you've lived for 10, 15, 30 years, whatever. Notice 3 new things. Notice 3 new things about the person you live with. 3 new things about a friend. 3 new things about your work environment. And every time you do this, you're seeing that something you thought you knew, you didn't know as well as you thought you did. And that eventually brings you to the understanding, hey, I don't really know anything.
