Story: Focus on the Growing Heap, Not the One Coin. (One of My Favorite Stories!)
For the weekly videos, I now tell a story. I’ve realized
that for me, and I think for many people, a story is what holds my attention and
makes a point most powerfully.
This week’s story: Focus on the growing heap, not the one coin.
Can’t see the video? Click here.
Here are the exact words of this teaching story, known as “the argument of the growing heap,” as described in the footnote in my college-era edition of Erasmus’s classic work, The Praise of Folly:
“If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.”
This story is one of my favorites, because it so perfectly captures a paradox that I grapple with in my own life, and which is very significant to happiness: Often, when we consider our actions, it’s clear that any one instance of an action is almost meaningless, yet at the same time, a sum of those actions is very meaningful. Whether we focus on the single coin, or the growing heap, will shape our behavior.
Go here to read more about this story.
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This week’s story: Focus on the growing heap, not the one coin.
Can’t see the video? Click here.
Here are the exact words of this teaching story, known as “the argument of the growing heap,” as described in the footnote in my college-era edition of Erasmus’s classic work, The Praise of Folly:
“If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.”
This story is one of my favorites, because it so perfectly captures a paradox that I grapple with in my own life, and which is very significant to happiness: Often, when we consider our actions, it’s clear that any one instance of an action is almost meaningless, yet at the same time, a sum of those actions is very meaningful. Whether we focus on the single coin, or the growing heap, will shape our behavior.
Go here to read more about this story.
Find the archives of videos here. More than 1.6 MILLION views. Don’t forget to subscribe!
If you’re reading this post through the daily email, click here to join the conversation. And if you’d like to get the daily blog post by email, sign up here.
The Disappearance of This New York Icon Made Me a Little Sad.
I was so sad–quite disproportionately sad–when I
read that after forty-two years, the Metropolitan Museum has decided to discontinue the use of
its medal admissions tags. The price of the tin got too high.I’ve always loved those metal admission buttons; I loved their changing colors, the nice feeling of bending the tin in my fingers, the feeling of satisfaction I got when I put the button in the special receptacle on the way out of the museum.
And now they’re gone! An icon of New York City–finished.
My mother is visiting from Kansas City, and she visited the museum, so I just saw her wearing the newfangled admissions sticker. “It’s just not the same,” I told her.
The end of the buttons is a good reminder: appreciate the little things while they last, because even things that seem as though they’d never change, will change. Feel grateful for those tiny pleasures that are so easy to take for granted.
I’m reminded of Robert Frost’s poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay“:
Nature’s first green is gold,Not even a gold Poupon Metropolitan Museum button.
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing gold can stay.
If you want to read more along these lines, read the last chapter of Happier at Home–one of the best things I’ve ever written, if I do say so myself.
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“Really Skillful People Never Get Out of Time, and Are Always Deliberate, and Never Appear Busy.”
“Speed is not part of the true Way of strategy.
Speed implies that things seem fast or slow, according to whether or not they
are in rhythm. Whatever the Way, the master of strategy does not appear
fast….Of course, slowness is bad. Really skillful people never get out of time,
and are always deliberate, and never appear busy.”–Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings
I often think about how to incorporate the quality of “unhurriedness” into my life, and I recall this passage often. If you want to read more about that, check out Happier at Home, chapter on “Time.” (You can read it as a sample chapter here.)
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Why I’m Trying to Explain Less.
I’m trying to curb a bad tendency in myself–the
tendency to explain myself in a tiresome way.Perhaps it’s my status as an Upholder, but I really hate to let people down, to make a mistake, to screw up. Some people can let small slip-ups slide off easily, but they really bother me. And so whenever I have a justification to explain my lapse, I want to tell people. In great detail. Even if they don’t care.
I finally realized–somehow–how exhausting and irrelevant people must often find this behavior. They don’t want to listen to my long explanation of what happened on the subway, or how I spilled coffee on my laptop, or how I was confused about the address.
Some email exchanges helped me understand this. Whenever this person had to change the time of a meeting, she would provide lengthy explanations about why she needed to make that change. I found this draining and overwhelming. Because so much information was presented, I repeatedly assumed that the information must somehow be significant to me, but it wasn’t. It was irrelevant, and I found it confusing and boring to try to sift through it.
I also sat through a presentation by a lawyer who was clearly enjoying showing off his command of information, but because he was including everything he knew, it wasn’t clear what was relevant to us in the audience. We needed the answers to a very few questions, and he was telling us everything he knew that was slightly related. I felt dazed.
This behavior really annoyed me, but then I noticed the same tendency in myself. Oh my goodness, I love to explain and give facts, and to justify and defend. And, as Jung observed, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Or in less elegant but catchier terms, “You spot it, you got it.” Well, I got it!
Just today, I was ten minutes late for an appointment. I said, “I’m sorry I’m late,” and had to bite my tongue not to let forth a torrent of unnecessary and boring explanations.
Now I’ve resolved to Explain Less–to tell people what they need and want to know, and not to deluge them with information just because I want to justify myself. How about you? Do you ever have a similar urge?
I’m working on my Happiness Project, and you could have one, too! Everyone’s project will look different, but it’s the rare person who can’t benefit. Join in — no need to catch up, just jump in right now. Each Friday’s post will help you think about your own happiness project.
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