Only the outliers

Cygnets, and that’s it. (Image by Hans Benn)

“If you had to wear one of these outfits, which one would you pick?”

So went the game we used to play in the twentieth century, back when magazines and catalogs came to the house every week. You’d open to a random page filled with models in awkward poses and imagine a hypothetical scenario of forced fashion. The worse the clothing, the funnier the answer.

Of course, the images in a given spread were always variations on a theme. Three or four women standing together in khaki pants, each with a different style of Fair Isle sweater or colorful blazer. There wasn’t that much to choose from.

For many years, the only fashion I was exposed to was in those catalogs or in a handful of stores at the mall. I didn’t realize that I could wear something else completely — maybe even attempt to be someone else completely. None of it felt right, so I got used to never quite feeling right. In early adulthood, I discovered vintage clothing, and that was the beginning of finding my own style.

I hate to contradict Forrest Gump, but life isn’t like a box of chocolates. A box of chocolates is, again, variations on a theme. There are so many choices outside of that box (raspberries? edamame? cashews?), and that’s where the true surprises and adventures are.

If we don’t realize this, we will hunt around in that metaphorical box forever, looking for something that isn’t a chocolate-covered future trip to the dentist and wondering why we can’t find it.

Or we’ll flip through that middle-of-the-road catalog fruitlessly seeking an outfit we might actually want to wear and blame ourselves for being too picky.

It’s not our fault — we’re just looking in the wrong place. We have to expand our search.

I remember flying into Zürich on my first trip to Europe. My friend Patrick was in the window seat, and I was in the middle. “Casey,” he said. “The mountains!” I leaned over to the window and looked at the ground. Where? He pointed up, and there were the magnificent Alps, right at eye level. Oh.

The big stuff will jump right out at you if you know where to look. But if you’re only expecting more of the small stuff, you might miss what’s right in front of you.

Sometimes, we’re trying to determine the nuances between various shades of gray, not realizing that the bright fuchsia we really want is just outside our frame. We can make easier progress when we ignore all of the samey stuff and turn our attention to only the outliers.

For example, when you start out with short form video, you can expect most of your early attempts to get around 250 views. Maybe you’ll hit 400 or 600, but those variations aren’t very important and you can pretty much ignore them. What you’re looking for is a video that hits 2,500 or 3,000 views. There’s your outlier. What was different about it that kept people watching?

Whatever you’re working on, if you haven’t found an outlier, you might have to try stuff you wouldn’t normally do, or go to places you wouldn’t normally visit. Shaking up your routine can help you see in a different way and notice new things. It can help other people see you in a different way, leading to different results.

I remember decluttering a shelf of books before a move, trying that Marie Kondo method of holding each one in my hands to determine whether it “sparked joy.” I hemmed and hawed and went back and forth, comparing the relative joy levels triggered by these books. And then, I put every single one in the donate box. Turns out, none of them really sparked joy. There was no outlier in the bunch. It was a relief to release them all.

In the scheme of things, so many of our choices don’t really matter. We make them, and then we make the most of them. But when we find ourselves stuck and wanting more, it might be time to seek the outliers that leave no question about their value and significance to us. When we see them, we’ll know.