One of my roommates last year had a tradition — whenever he wanted to make someone feel appreciated, loved, congratulated or cheered up, he would write them a card. His cards stood out like a sore thumb, always following the same formula — an unevenly folded piece of paper with the name of the person on one of the outer sides and his words scribbled within. They were undeniably heartfelt, utterly messy, undoubtedly true and unmistakably his. There was no message except his words. Now I — a poet of seven years whose definition of a last-minute card was one I graphic-designed myself or, at the very least, wrote on a piece of neatly folded cardstock paper — was a little horrified when I first saw one of these franken-cards. What the heck? That’s it?
That’s it.
My old roommate, now one of my closest friends, perfected the art of minimizing the time between thought and action. I cannot count the amount of times that I wanted to do something nice for someone but told myself that I didn’t have the right supplies, the perfect words or the correct methods, and so, I shouldn’t. But when have I not had a piece of printer paper?
Jeff Galak, an associate professor of marketing at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business, along with other researchers, has shared useful insights on how the details of the gifts we give to people don’t matter as much as we think they will. They write that even though we often expect that it is the best option to give someone a unique, expensive or somehow perfect gift, the giver’s focus on thoughtfulness and expense often does not correlate with the recipient’s assessment of the gift’s value. When I think of all the nice things people have done for me, this rings true. Sure, sometimes someone does something that makes me smile for a moment and other times I think about it for weeks, but what matters most is that they expressed their thoughtfulness.
Something else my friend taught me is to re-evaluate a core value of mine — vulnerability. One of my favorite authors, University of Houston Social Work Professor Brené Brown, writes in her book “Rising Strong” that, “….vulnerability is not winning or losing — it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome.” I think I’ve been focusing on doing what will make me win too much. The downside to only doing something when you think it will wow someone is that you miss so many opportunities to express emotion. You can’t be vulnerable if you only pick the winning battles.
On the other hand, I think considering nuances and details is important too. Practicing analysis and accounting for details are important tools to understand the world around you. These strategies help you write a good essay and policy or even just understand why an event didn’t do well. As I’ve reflected on my lessons from these cards, though, I’ve come to a new conclusion about nuance — it is not always the time for details.
In other words, we can’t always be convergent thinkers. One of the most important ideas I have ever been exposed to is that of divergent and convergent thinking. We diverge when we think big and brainstorm without limits, and we converge when we think about the details. We use both when we try to solve problems or think of ideas to implement. You would think you need to be good at both at once to be successful, but the timing also matters. Anne Manning, an instructor in creative thinking and creative problem solving at Harvard University, illustrates this point fantastically in a video where she compares divergent thinking to reaching for the sky and convergent thinking to bending over and trying to touch your toes. She states the maybe-not-so-obvious — you can’t move both ways at the same time. Convergent and divergent thinking work in the same way as brainstorming and analyzing — they take turns. It’s important to not stop one in its tracks with the other.
I think one of my greatest faults is that I converge before I finish diverging. It’s not that I lack creativity and can’t think of ideas, but I get this kind of crisis of action from mixing the two, thinking, well, I have all these ideas I’m excited about, but this one is too unrealistic and this one is so underwhelming. Gosh, where do I start? What do I do? I end up doing nothing far too often.
Maybe the answer is to not be so critical of what you’re doing until you have to be. Think huge — even a bit unrealistically — about your dream project or what the solution to an issue may be. Only refine when and if needed. Write sloppy cards for the people who matter most to you, and don’t think twice about it, because they will appreciate it either way. Maybe the answer to how to live a life with less regret, show kindness more often and make more of your exciting ideas come to life is to know when to think about the details and when not to. I’ve learned it’s okay to let things come out a little rough at first. Maybe this isn’t the answer for everyone, but, right now, I think it’s the answer for me.
Max Kurant is a senior double-majoring in English and an individualized major in social systems science.