Little Stories 327: The Shortcut Mind

I have a confession to make: I love hot showers.

I can’t do cold water. Since I moved a couple of years ago, my rented apartment has a hot shower, and I’ve been using it ever since. My electric bill has never even reached RM40, so don’t judge me. This is the one luxury I give myself, unapologetically, every single day. Until last weekend.

Every time I turned on the switch, the hot shower didn’t work. So for the past four days, I had to use cold water. Automatically, I was reminded of the first week I moved in. The hot shower didn’t work back then either, the technician came and fixed the switch. So for the past four days, I kept telling myself I needed to call the technician again. It must be the same problem. Until this morning.

While showering, I lingered on the problem and asked myself: What if it’s not the switch for the shower, but something else? What if a switch on the main board tripped? So I checked the main electrical board. And lo and behold, one of the switches was off. I pushed it back up, hot water again.

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I read about the Least Effort Principle yesterday, and about Thought Experiments this morning. Both oddly relate to this whole hot shower incident.

• First, I assumed the hot water wasn’t working because it had happened before. My brain defaulted to the same solution: call the technician. Least effort, fastest route, familiar pattern.
• Second, I sat with the problem, I questioned it: what ifs. I ran a quiet little thought experiment without even realizing it.

And I found the solution without having to call anyone.

What I’m trying to say is this: our default mode is to reach for the fastest way out of a problem. But being an overthinker means I don’t always do that. I linger, I sit in it. I swim around in the problem until I find something. There are pros and cons to this. The good part is that sometimes, I find better solutions. The bad part is when I stay too long and spiral. 

Right now, I think I’m just trying to figure out how to manage that middle space; how long to stay, and when to step out.