How often do you take the road most traveled?

It's car buying season in my family right now.  My poor old car is limping along on its last legs, and my mother's car was recently brutally murdered by a brilliant 16 year old who decided the best way to kill a scary, scary spider was to crush it at about 35 miles per hour between the car he was driving and a car legally parked on the side of the road.

(I'm a little bitter about that one, since I was borrowing it at the time, wasn't anywhere near the car when it happened and actually found out when my father called to say the police were looking for me!  Plus, I had just filled up the gas tank.)

Car buying season in my family means one thing: hours spent scouring through used car lots to find the perfect car... which will turn out to be a mid-to-late-90s Nissan Maxima.

How do I know that's how the search will end?

Because three of the four three cars we've bought have been Nissan Maximas.  We have it in white and burgundy, and the murdered car was champagne-colored.  The newest car is a Nissan Altima - which my father decided to buy because:

"In 2004, the body of the Maxima was enlarged to compete against the Lexus, and as a result, the Altima - which was smaller - became the size of the Maxima."

(Basically, it's as close to a Maxima as my father could find.)

But why do we keep buying the same car?  It's not because we're trying for a matched set - it's because my father knew how to fix the mid-90s Nissan Maxima, and he figures it's just easier to keep buying the same car than learn how to fix a new model!

(--> That is not our car, but it probably would be if it were for sale.)

Does that sound familiar?  Anyone else know someone who keeps going on the same path because they already know the way?  Anyone guilty of that themselves?

I definitely can't beg innocent... I've taken the road most traveled many, many times.  I am especially guilty of:

• Buying the same brand of jeans over and over again because they "fit" and I can just grab them off the shelf in my size.
• Making chili exactly like my mother made it because I know how it tastes.
• Bringing home bottle openers as souvenirs for my little brother and glass earrings for my mother because I know they'll be well-received (and used.)

No sense doing something different when the past solution has worked so well before!  Right?

I think that's one of the reasons it's so easy to get stuck in a certain way of thinking.  We're so accustomed to taking the "road most traveled" that it can be hard (and scary) to do something different.

 

Comments

[Lee]

Like water in rivers, thinking processes tend to follow the easiest lanes - those we already know from the past. In SIT we try to walk people through the "path of most resistance". The basic assumption is that walking in the expected, well known lanes, usually leads to ordinary results. Ordinary results are not necessarily bad results, but if we want to innovate and to surprise our customers and competitors, we need to step out of our "convenience zone".

[Iain Hamp]

Most people want to grow. Most people resist change. But, by definition, growth cannot happen without change - growth IS change!

[Andy Didyk]

I find that the creativity and level of one's thinking tends to be inversely related to the amount of personal risk tied to the idea that one is supposed to be coming up with.

In other works, in your purchasing a car, jeans, or whatever, you're making an investment of your hard earned money. What's the point in expending it on the unknown, at risk to self, when you're already happy with the known quantity?

In the same way, it's easy to come up with crazy ideas and new ways of thinking when it's someone else's money, career, or reputation on the line. It's just how we're wired. That's why the best work environments, such as Google, recognize failure as just another path to learning.

[Vicki Baker]

I agree it is a risk vs. reward process that we've figured out works best for us when making decisions. I also think there is a time issue to it. Imagine if every time you went to buy something or take an action, you approached it as if it were the first time you'd done this. You'd have to weigh the pros and cons, analyze outcomes, shop around, etc. and that takes more time.

I saw a news video in the early 1990s about Russians that came to the US and visited a grocery store. They were overwhelmed at the choices we had, and exhausted by the time they got to the checkout. In the cereal aisle, they seemed confused and annoyed - why so many? how do you know what to get? I remembered that because it seemed to convey that "freedom" isn't easy if you don't have the background or an established base of information. That works whether you apply it to cereal purchases or even to democracy, and might explain why some societies find it easier to live by religious rules or in a system where power or "might" picks the leader. It reduces the choices available.

See, you thought you were in a rut, always picking the same car. You are really doing it to so you have time in your life to make all the choices we make living with all this freedom! (I think I've gone a bit mad during this election!)