It’s funny how perception changes due to a gain in knowledge. Imagine believing that something is impossible, then suddenly discovering that it’s not.
What changed? The only thing that really changes is how you now look at that thing that you once thought was impossible.
My guilty pleasure on my smart phone is a game called Spider Solitaire. I won’t bore you with the details on how the game is played. That you can look up online or even download the app onto your phone and play it. But I will tell you that I probably spend way too much time playing the game when I should be doing something more productive with my time.
When I first started playing Spider Solitaire on my phone, I lost virtually every game. Like most people, I get frustrated from losing all the time. The very few games I won kept me somewhat interested, but I had almost reached the point where I was going to stop playing Spider Solitaire altogether.
I looked online for some kind of hack, or some guidance on how I might win, and I found out something very interesting.
The next time I played Spider Solitaire on my phone I won. And the next time. And the time after that.
What changed?
The only thing that changed was my perception. The information that I found online said that up to about 92% of all games are winnable.
When I approached the game now armed with this new information, I realized that in the past, before I knew that most games were winnable, I had given up way too easily.
Using the undo button on the game, if I had lost the game, I’d backtrack and try a different move. Perhaps several different moves. Sometimes I’d go all the way back to the beginning and start over.
But I didn’t give up. And that was the key that solved my problem.
To date, playing two suits, I have won the last 521 games. In total, I have won 879 games and lost 256 for a winning percentage of 77.44.
Imagine being told that something you believed was impossible was in fact possible. How would that change your perceptions?
How can you apply that to all walks of life?
Do we give up too easily?
