Today's post is by Gisela Hausmann, the author of the book Naked Determination.
Gisela writes:
As a child I had been fascinated by the
fact that I could multiply a negative number with another negative number and
create a positive product. I still remember when my math teacher, Mr. B.,
presented this concept…
Negative times negative equals positive???
How could this be?
Mr. B. called it Algebra. To me, it didn't
make sense, though other algebraic operations did.
It was obvious that if I multiplied any
number with zero all was gone. Zero [0] was this huge force that sucked
everything in and nullified all. Kind of like a black hole in space.
The fact, that multiplying a positive
number with a negative number produced a negative product made sense too. The
“negative aura” tainted the product and made the whole thing negative.
The only thing that did not make sense was
that multiplying two negative numbers could produce a positive number.
Eventually, I made this concept work for me
- in real life.
Two negative chores might be 1) to clean my
refrigerator and 2) to sort out my closet. At least to me, both of these tasks
are unpleasant.
Inevitably I will find at least one item in
my refrigerator which has expired. Of
course, I hate that. I still remember seeing pictures of child victims during
the famine in Biafra when I was a child. I don't ever want food to go to waste.
Equally, going through my closet will most
certainly reveal that I cannot even keep track of my own socks... How can it be
that I traveled the globe but I cannot keep track of my own socks, in a
confined space like my own house... After three decades of losing socks a
certain feeling of incompetence has set in...
Cleaning my refrigerator thoroughly will
take about 1 hour.
Cleaning my closet might take 2 hours.
The mathematical equation for these two
processes is:
(-1 hr) + (-2 hrs) = (-3 hrs)
In other words: If I tackle these tasks one
after the other I will spend 3 hrs doing things I am not particularly fond of.
What about if I mixed things up???
Let’s say, I check all items from only two
shelves of my refrigerator for their expiration date and wipe the jars
perfectly clean. Then I wash only these two shelves, and set them out to
air-dry. Instead of continuing with the refrigerator, I now tackle the clothes
on half the closet rod.
Returning to the refrigerator, the
remaining task does not look as daunting as before. My first two shelves have air-dried and I can
store clean food jars on them. Stepping away from the refrigerator and admiring
my work I already have a feeling of success. Equally, when I'll get back to the
closet, the task won't look so bad. After all, the clothes on half the closet
rod is already neatly sorted.
Finishing both tasks in intervals is much
more entertaining. Also, I get to live through multiple periods of successes
instead of looking at a seemingly never-ending task. I believe that this works
for me a result of today's lifestyle. We are used to imagining/seeing results
1-click away. We are simply not used to laboring our way to success anymore. Things
are supposed to worker faster than they did years ago.
The mathematical equation for this second
option is:
(-1) x (-2) = (+2)
Two negatives create a positive feeling!
Gisela Hausmann is author of 9 books,
including the award-winning adventure ebook Naked Determination, which is on sale for 99 cents until the end of Boxing Day.Get it HERE.
© 2013 by Gisela Hausmann, All rights
reserved.
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