Yesterday we met Dave and Bobbie for lunch. We hopped on the subway for a quick ride to LongYang Lu Station and the Ajisen Noodle place. Bobbie had never been there and it had been a while for Michael. So we get seated, give our order to the server and are just chatting… catching up.
As the server arrives with our drinks, the tray is wobbling… he over corrects and dumps a whole glass of passion juice on Bobbie. I mean completely empties the sweet sticky drink down her right side from the waist down. What a way to start lunch. Worst yet… there is no bathroom in the restaurant, just a sink back by the kitchen. She was such a trooper. She cleaned up as best she could at the sink in the back. Thank goodness I always have Wet Ones in my pack. They are my staple these days… for a quick cleanup before a meal out or a wipe of the toilet seat or whatever needs a disinfecting wipe down. Not that Bobbie needed a disinfecting wipe down… but it did make an effort at removing the leftover sticky!
After we finished our meal, we were chatting and Bobbie mentioned something about her and Dave snapping at one another. I picked up on it immediately as I recognized what was happening from our own experience. Michael and I never really fight… but the first few months in China, it seemed that nothing passed without sniping at each other. It was so bad that we made a vow… we gave ourselves one month to figure it out or we were going to pack it in and go home.
One of my new friends, Anne, was telling me this story one day as we were discussing our experiences regarding living in China. It is impossible to explain to someone how ‘hard’ it is to live here if they have never experienced it. I shared this story with them …
The article:
You hear something a lot about change: People won’t change because they’re too lazy. Well, I’m here to stick up for the lazy people. In fact, I want to argue that what looks like laziness is actually exhaustion. The proof comes from a psychology study that is absolutely fascinating.
So picture this: Students come into a lab. It smells amazing—someone has just baked chocolate-chip cookies. On a table in front of them, there are two bowls. One has the fresh-baked cookies. The other has a bunch of radishes. Some of the students are asked to eat some cookies but no radishes. Others are told to eat radishes but no cookies, and while they sit there, nibbling on rabbit food, the researchers leave the room – which is intended to tempt them and is frankly kind of sadistic. But in the study none of the radish-eaters slipped – they showed admirable self-control. And meanwhile, it probably goes without saying that the people gorging on cookies didn’t experience much temptation.
Then, the two groups are asked to do a second, seemingly unrelated task—basically a kind of logic puzzle where they have to trace out a complicated geometric pattern without raising their pencil. Unbeknownst to them, the puzzle can’t be solved. The scientists are curious how long they’ll persist at a difficult task. So the cookie-eaters try again and again, for an average of 19 minutes, before they give up. But the radish-eaters—they only last an average of 8 minutes. What gives?
The answer may surprise you: They ran out of self-control. Psychologists have discovered that self-control is an exhaustible resource. And I don’t mean self-control only in the sense of turning down cookies or alcohol, I mean a broader sense of self-supervision—any time you’re paying close attention to your actions, like when you’re having a tough conversation or trying to stay focused on a paper you’re writing. [add-on from me: or living in China!] This helps to explain why, after a long hard day at the office, we’re more likely to snap at our spouses or have one drink too many—we’ve depleted our self-control.
And here’s why this matters for change: In almost all change situations, you’re substituting new, unfamiliar behaviors for old, comfortable ones, and that burns self-control. Let’s say I present a new morning routine to you that specify how you’ll shower and brush your teeth. You’ll understand it and you might even agree with my process. But to pull it off, you’ll have to supervise yourself very carefully. Every fiber of your being will want to go back to the old way of doing things. Inevitably, you’ll slip. And if I were uncharitable, I’d see you going back to the old way and I’d say, ‘‘You’re so lazy. Why can’t you just change?”
This brings us back to the point I promised I’d make: That what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. Change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.
So picture this: Students come into a lab. It smells amazing—someone has just baked chocolate-chip cookies. On a table in front of them, there are two bowls. One has the fresh-baked cookies. The other has a bunch of radishes. Some of the students are asked to eat some cookies but no radishes. Others are told to eat radishes but no cookies, and while they sit there, nibbling on rabbit food, the researchers leave the room – which is intended to tempt them and is frankly kind of sadistic. But in the study none of the radish-eaters slipped – they showed admirable self-control. And meanwhile, it probably goes without saying that the people gorging on cookies didn’t experience much temptation.
Then, the two groups are asked to do a second, seemingly unrelated task—basically a kind of logic puzzle where they have to trace out a complicated geometric pattern without raising their pencil. Unbeknownst to them, the puzzle can’t be solved. The scientists are curious how long they’ll persist at a difficult task. So the cookie-eaters try again and again, for an average of 19 minutes, before they give up. But the radish-eaters—they only last an average of 8 minutes. What gives?
The answer may surprise you: They ran out of self-control. Psychologists have discovered that self-control is an exhaustible resource. And I don’t mean self-control only in the sense of turning down cookies or alcohol, I mean a broader sense of self-supervision—any time you’re paying close attention to your actions, like when you’re having a tough conversation or trying to stay focused on a paper you’re writing. [add-on from me: or living in China!] This helps to explain why, after a long hard day at the office, we’re more likely to snap at our spouses or have one drink too many—we’ve depleted our self-control.
And here’s why this matters for change: In almost all change situations, you’re substituting new, unfamiliar behaviors for old, comfortable ones, and that burns self-control. Let’s say I present a new morning routine to you that specify how you’ll shower and brush your teeth. You’ll understand it and you might even agree with my process. But to pull it off, you’ll have to supervise yourself very carefully. Every fiber of your being will want to go back to the old way of doing things. Inevitably, you’ll slip. And if I were uncharitable, I’d see you going back to the old way and I’d say, ‘‘You’re so lazy. Why can’t you just change?”
This brings us back to the point I promised I’d make: That what looks like laziness is often exhaustion. Change wears people out—even well-intentioned people will simply run out of fuel.
What I did not know at the time, but I can recognize it now, is that every time we leave the house, we have to put ourselves in check. We are bombarded with language issues and cultural differences and a variety of assaults every time we go anywhere. When you are out, you have no control over anything… not really. If someone cuts in line, or yells at you (regardless of whether you understand or not), or pushes you, or is standing so close you are uncomfortable… you just have to grin and bear it. It is what it is here… this is how they operate.
You are using up your self-restraint every time you go anywhere. So what happens when you get with your spouse… you try to exercise control over every situation, regardless of the consequences. And that was what was going on with us. We had exhausted our self-restraint so the gloves were off with each other… so to speak.
Once we recognized what we were doing, that each other was not the enemy and that we really only have each other here… we stopped being so crazy! China is a hard place to live and to live here we need each other. Recognize when you are running out of fuel and retreat to recharge… don’t take it out on the one person that is here on this journey with you. It is hard enough without creating more stress.
Until next time…
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