[Change Your Life] The Flywheel of Society - Earl Nightingale
Do you see things in an "unhabitual" way? Are your habits devoted to keeping things at they are - or taking advantage of new and more profitable opportunities?
William James, in his Principles of Psychology, defined genius as little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
In his essay on habit, he referred to habit as the flywheel of society; the thing that keeps us doing what we have been doing in the past; the thing that makes us fear change regardless of the present condition of our lives. And the genius, as defined by Dr. James, seems to be that rare bird who knows that change is not only good, but inevitable. He anticipates the inevitable. It is he perhaps who makes change inevitable. He habitually looks at everything about him in an unhabitual way. He takes nothing for granted. He knows that whatever he sees that is made by man, or served by man, is imperfect, is always in the state of evolving.
Let me give you an example. A friend of mine was seeking a site for a large, luxury motel. He was in no hurry, and spent months in a large, West Coast city looking for the site that would probably best guarantee a good return on the considerable amount of money he was going to invest and borrow.
He found the perfect site. It was near a large university and at the intersection of five main roads, two of which were very heavily traveled. It was also within the city limits, which would mean a large local trade for the restaurant. There was only one hitch. On the site stood an old brick building housing a manufacturing concern which was still in business.
He called on the owners of the business and told them what he wanted to do. Since the city had, over the years, grown around the old building, he pointed out that it would be to their benefit to sell him the property at a price many times the land’s original value and build themselves a new, modern plant in a less congested area. They saw the sense of his plan and a way to get nearly half a million dollars for their property. The deal was closed. He razed the building and built his motel.
Later, he discovered that many people in the motel business had looked upon that site as ideal for their purposes, but had written it off because it was already occupied. The point is that he saw it, not with the old brick manufactory on it, but instead with his beautiful new motel sitting there; he looked at that corner in an unhabitual way.. And everybody benefited by his genius, including the community.
I think each of us can greatly increase the value of his life by taking to heart Dr. James’s definition of genius; by looking at the things about us – in our home, and particularly in our work – with new eyes, with the eyes of creation. We can form the habit of seeing things, not as they are, but as they perhaps will be, as they could be, as our changing world insists they be.
Our lives are full of old brick buildings that we assume will remain standing where they are. And maybe they always will, if we don’t do something about them.