Your nonverbal brain, then, is continuously registering incredibly subtle predictive clues. As Lehrer puts it, "Every feeling is really a summary of data, a visceral response to all of the information that can't be accessed directly." He experiences this information not as thought ( "This one's high and inside") but as feeling ( "Danger! No!"). His swing is based on subtle clues gleaned from the pitcher's windup. This highly developed area "has been exquisitely refined by evolution.so it can make fast decisions based on very little information."įor example, a baseball batter doesn't have time to think about the trajectory of a pitched ball. The calculating part of the human brain, Lehrer writes, "is like a computer operating system that was rushed to market." It's slow, clunky, prone to errors-at least compared with the brain region associated with emotions. One of the things that changed my mind about timing was the recent book How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. Tune out, and it will appear as if you're at the none-too-tender mercy of blind luck, as poor Jackie was. Tune in to these signals, and it really does seem that everything's on schedule. I've come to believe we humans possess highly sophisticated instincts to help us navigate time. Nevertheless, I'm mellowing toward the "timing is perfect!" constituency. There have been many times in my life (the accidental pregnancy, the chronic illness, the water-heater explosion that flooded my house on the day my real estate agent showed it to prospective buyers) when I wanted to personally cane anyone who trumpeted, "The timing's perfect!" If that were true, would scientists ever have invented Cialis, much less had to warn men about that scary four-hour maximum? I think not. Now I have a severance package and a clear calendar. "My cousin runs a medical clinic in rural Nepal, and I'd always wanted to volunteer there. "Everyone had been predicting the collapse, so in the past few months I'd been checking out other options," Cleo told me. Meanwhile, Jackie's cubicle buddy Cleo threw a party to celebrate her own layoff. Jackie was jobless in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Terrified she'd be fired, she worked like a mule and earned brilliant performance ratings-just before the bank failed. Jackie snagged a job in banking just before the recent recession hit. ![]() "I always do the right thing at the wrong time." It did look that way. My timing stinks!" my friend Jackie moaned.
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