feotakahari (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feotakahari) wrote2024-06-29 05:23 pm
feotakahari) wrote2024-06-29 05:23 pm
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Today I tried to help my mother set up an electrical cord. I assumed the device the cord plugged into couldn't be moved, so I said the cord was too short. Turned out it was easy to move if I'd tried.
My mother got sick of how a "grown man" keeps failing to accomplish basic tasks, so she told me to put a security device on the wall without any assistance from her. I drilled the holes, then tried to put in the screws over and over and over, swearing all the while, long past the point where I would normally have given up. Then I realized I needed to make the holes bigger.
I think most observers would say my mother was in the right here. I worked past my "learned incompetence" and solved a problem I didn't initially know how to handle. But I don't think this knowledge generalizes. Sure, I know to make holes bigger when they're too small, but what about the next time I face a problem "anyone" would know how to solve? I think lateral thinking is just a weakness of mine, and I'm never going to come up with the answers as quickly as "anyone" can.
(I screwed in the device in the wrong location.)
My mother got sick of how a "grown man" keeps failing to accomplish basic tasks, so she told me to put a security device on the wall without any assistance from her. I drilled the holes, then tried to put in the screws over and over and over, swearing all the while, long past the point where I would normally have given up. Then I realized I needed to make the holes bigger.
I think most observers would say my mother was in the right here. I worked past my "learned incompetence" and solved a problem I didn't initially know how to handle. But I don't think this knowledge generalizes. Sure, I know to make holes bigger when they're too small, but what about the next time I face a problem "anyone" would know how to solve? I think lateral thinking is just a weakness of mine, and I'm never going to come up with the answers as quickly as "anyone" can.
(I screwed in the device in the wrong location.)