Yakkity yak! Don't come back!

For a couple of weeks now, I have been reading this book called Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. It's on the suggested reading guide for the Foreign Service Officer Test and since I am taking it in a couple of months it would be beneficial for me to take a look. The book mostly points out things that we do wrong when we try to analyze something quickly, but when we make a quick judgement that results in something good we call that “intuition.” Gladwell tries to breakdown “intuition” so we can call upon it when necessary such as when working in an ER or out on a battlefield. I’ve read several chapters of “thin-slicing” (where you pick out defining factors of a situation), snap decisions, and spontaneity. I am determined to finish the book, but what gave me a huge lightbulb was the idea that to avoid complicating things keep it simple.

Remember those days in school when your teacher would ask you to write an essay? On several occasions I was docked points because my essays were long and mostly boring. Fair enough - I won’t want to read over 100 10-page papers either if they didn’t capture my interest. Then my teachers introduced me to the concept of KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Much of my writing was wordy so I quickly learned to omit and instill intrigue  Think of Hemingway; his signature writing was very simple and yet he was able to bring you into the story:

“A wine shop was open and I went in for some coffee. It smelled of early morning, of swept dust, spoons in coffee-glasses and the wet circles left by wine glasses.” 

How beautiful is that? It feels like I’m right there with him; walking into the shop, sitting in dust that hadn’t yet settled, and sipping from cups browned from countless uses. (That last sentence took me a while make it flow cause I’m no Ernest Hemingway.)

So this idea of keeping it simple [stupid] is brilliant! And I believe I can apply it to my dating rituals. Dating for me is a difficult concept to grasp and it upsets me when I go on a date. Though it is fun to meet new people, judgement is always on my back and it can be very painful in the end. I would love to just have a simple equation on how to meet your soulmate and I think I found it - KISS. 

In the movie P.S. I Love You, one of the main character’s best friends kept asking men 1) Are you single? 2) Are you strait? 3) Are you working? and then kissing them to see if there was a “spark.” It was funny to see how quickly she narrowed down the possibilities to finally find the man she would marry. She got RESULTS! What amazed me was that there is a similar affect that happens inside the ER, as described from Gladwell’s book, Blink. In order to quickly determine if someone’s chest pain is life threatening a man named Lee Goldman came up with a process to just ask three simple questions and use a heart reader. Then, from the results, doctors were able to tell where patients should go for further diagnosis. This process cut down on time and money, which is exactly what everyone wants! And when it comes to dating, even though this is just a THEORY, I can imagine that you would save yourself from headaches, drama, and draining your wallet. 

So to put this plainly: Stop your yakking and just KISS.