I was sat on the passenger seat. We would have a serious conversation about what I was about to do. “Some people take what is built and established and want to deconstruct it. They want to take everything out and see if they can build something different out of it. By doing so they completely distort the paramount characteristics of the thing, ending up with something that opposes what it was at first.” I couldn’t disagree more. It is easy to stick to what we are used to doing, but change is sometimes hard to accept — mainly when it is a super radical change.
Adam Smith was an open minded guy who, in the beginning, believed the market would regulate itself without much need of government intervention and wrote an extraordinary and super thick book explaining why. Nonetheless, during his last days he was bold enough to change his mind, admit his mistake and state that government intervention is crucial to the healthy functioning of markets.
There is a song in Portuguese that says “I’d rather be this waking metamorphosis, than have that old formed opinion about everything.” Isn’t that great? Isn’t that hard? He says he’d rather change his mind over and over again than have that same old opinion that may be based on stuff that made sense back then, but now do not make all that sense anymore. But he goes on to saying the most daring thing, “I want to say the opposite of what I said before.” As if it was not hard enough to change your mind, but stand up and proclaim the exact opposite of what you previously so surely stated takes a lot of guts.
I invited a friend of mine to write on the blog. I told her, ” posts must have more than 600 words. Preferably, more than a thousand.” She accepted, but three months later she has still written nothing. My blog posts are so large not even I have the patience to proof read what I write. It’s time to change! I want to say the opposite of what I said before. New rule on the blog: From now on no post will ever have more than 500 words! It doesn’t matter how great ,or interesting, or complex, or exciting is the subject, no ultra-long posts anymore —I know no one has half an hour to read posts on random subjects anyway.
Also, there is another new rule. On past posts I tried to say a lot of stuff in one single text, that’s not happening anymore. From now on each post will transmit one simple idea. Dr Mike Murdock always says, “when you are sick and tired of repeating something, then people are beginning to understand.” Nothing personal guys, I don’t think you are dumb — actually, if you read this blog, chances are that you are amongst the most intelligent independent thinkers of all internet — it’s just our human brain doing its information selection process.
Be ready for a new It’s All About Focus. A faster, more flexible and concise website. I’m working out my thinking and doing some 180 degrees change, I don’t know everything and when I discover something new I may have to review some concepts. What about you? Can you say the opposite of what you said before on something?