So here we are, recently arrived in an other country. My belly is huge, only 2 more months left before Julian will be born. We are taking our first stroll through the colonial zone, the beautiful old part of Santo Domingo, with houses and walls that were built in the 16th century. People of all sorts have lived here in the past centuries, Indians, slaves and their traders, Spanish settlers, adventurers and pirates. We have a drink on the main square and I’m watching the people pass by. “Well at least the street kids are not as poor as in Angola” slips through my mind. Why am I thinking this? What is it that lets me make such an unfounded conclusion?

In Angola there’s a group of people that are both from African and Portuguese descent. So their skin is much lighter than that of the other Angolans. These people belong to the middle and upper class, live in the cities and have the better paid jobs. And when you have a better paid job in oil and diamond heaven Angola, better means a whole lot better. So whenever I would see a person with a lighter skin, I would, and as I often would find out wrongly, assume that they were richer. And that is exactly the reason why I had such a dumb thought in Santo Domingo. I soon found out these street kids are just as poor as in Angola. There simply is a much higher percentage of ‘mixed blood’ in Santo Domingo and that’s it.

I thought about this incident and a number of others while I was reading ‘Blink’, a great book written by Malcolm Gladwell. I love it because it actually approves of impulsive decision making! Well, at least in a few cases… It talks about how we understand the world around us and that we respond and decide on way more factors than that we consciously know and experience. In tons of striking examples Gladwell explains how

‘…..our unconscious is a powerful force. But it’s fallible. It’s not the case that our internal computer always shines through, instantly decoding the “truth” of a situation. it can be thrown off, distracted and disabled. Our instinctive reactions often have to compete with all kinds of other interests and emotions and sentiments. So when should we trust our interests and instincts and when should we be wary of them?’

Having read the book has made me aware of a lot of other automatic assumptions. For example, I notice that when I’m grading papers I’m surprised when kids with awful handwriting get high grades and the ones with nice handwritings don’t. I am much more aware of the power of positive attention and the destructiveness of negative remarks. I try to focus on my bodily reactions to situations before I draw quick conclusions or react. I discover that even though I hate it, I have racist assumptions, lots of arrogant thoughts and I make totally unfounded judgments. On the other hand, I realize that my instincts can be trusted when it comes to issues I’ve experienced before. And when it comes to decision making fortunately more information doesn’t necessarily mean that the conclusion will be better!

An other beautiful aspect of the book is that it shows that there is so much more to people and situations than that we think. There is a uniqueness in everybody and everything around us that we are unconsciously aware of and is waiting to be discovered. Now if we could just all read this book and let our dumb, quick conclusions and judgements go, wouldn’t the world be a super exciting place!