It’s All About The Narrative

We humans are prone to bias. One of it is survivorship bias, where we only see the ones who succeed as the norm. An example would be that we would say “Cars in the olden days are built to last,” while we point our fingers to an (old/classic) Volkswagen Beetle. Of course. If the car was shoddy, it wouldn’t last until today, but we forget about shoddy cars that were built because, well because they didn’t last.

Another similar example is the airplanes that came back during the World War 2. In this case, if the bias wasn’t recognised and the engineers didn’t fortify the oil tank area, even more planes wouldn’t make it back. So you see, this is a dangerous mindset to have.

I’m writing this because I have a tendency to consume ‘productivity’ books or videos that tells you how to make money and make it in life. It’s true, you need a drive in your life, otherwise you’ll just coasting or bouncing from one thing to another in life, but I disagree with these books/videos that say you must have a singular and tunnel vision of success in life. They might have succeeded because they have that ‘focused’ mindset, or they just seem to happen to succeed by working on the right thing, at the right time. Some people call it luck. Or ‘rezeki’. They then pick out things that they think have contributed to their success, and created a story around it. It’s all about the narrative

We, or at least me, then tries to replicate it, and gets frustrated when the results are not good. Some people might succeed, which then enforces the bias. Over time it becomes an axiom and then accepted as the truth. But like I posted before this, no one really knows what causes a person to succeed.

As a muslim though, I take console that whatever that I don’t ‘get’ in this life, will be rewarded in the next. I just have to do good. And in the hereafter, the ones who gets his book of deeds with their right hand, has the best of narratives. insyaAllah.

Thank you for reading.