The invisible upside

Aging is hard, but as they say: it beats the alternative. (Image by Sabine van Erp)

It turns out that the nine-year-old piano students, the thirteen-year-old awkward middle schoolers, and the adult professionals I’ve worked with over the years have a lot in common.

One recurring theme is their (our) tendency to eliminate potential choices based on the whisper of a possible negative outcome.

We refuse to do something that we want to do because we’ll have to do something we don’t want to do along the way.

We dismiss an opportunity when there’s a chance it won’t work out.

And we stick with an activity that is making us miserable because we’d rather deal with the devil we know.

For example, the piano students might refuse to perform in a recital out of fear or apathy.

Adolescents refuse to try out for a sports team or a play because they figure they won’t be chosen.

Meanwhile, adult professionals might keep putting effort into a project that isn’t showing any signs of success because it would be too painful to abandon it.

In each case, there is an invisible upside.

The piano student don’t realize that the satisfaction of accomplishment could change their lives.

The kids who won’t try out for the activity aren’t thinking about what could happen if they actually made the team or won the part, or how they would grow as a result of putting in the effort even if they didn’t make it.

And the would-be artists and entrepreneurs aren’t recognizing all of the other opportunities for success around them, many of which might be easier and more fun than what they are currently doing.

It makes sense on a certain level. Human beings are well designed to avoid danger. We are primed to see the downside of any action. However, if we’re going to make thoughtful choices, we need to be able to consciously take the potential upside into consideration.

This upside may be invisible because it doesn’t exist yet. But sometimes it’s not. We just don’t see it because any downside at all is enough for us to move on before we even consider it. When we do that, we’re missing out.

This is how we convince ourselves to not even apply for a particular job because of the inconvenience and uncertainty of doing so. This choice is made with little knowledge of what the job would be like; we reject it before we’ve had a chance to learn.

Deciding not to have children is reasonable — children are a huge hassle. But bringing new life into the world yields much more than dirty diapers and the necessity of saving for college. How do you measure the love and joy you would experience? How do you factor that into things?

And here’s a more banal and incredibly common manifestation of this tendency to ignore the invisible upside: Aspiring entrepreneurs hesitate to put themselves out there because they don’t want to be “salesy.” They’re concerned with what a handful of colleagues or casual acquaintances would think of them, and putting that negative hypothetical experience ahead of the more significant outcome of actually finding customers for their business.

The solution to this problem, anywhere it shows up, is very simple. We have to challenge ourselves to investigate both the potential downside and the upside of our choices.

That doesn’t help us to deal with the discomfort of actually making the choice or the consequences we might encounter as a result. However, we might identify some places where we were stuck without even realizing it. We might even resolve them.

When we make the invisible upside visible, we’ll have more clarity and confidence in our decision-making and a better understanding of what truly matters to us. This gives us a chance to get more of what we want out of life and less of what we don’t.