Wednesday, February 18, 2009

The Real Test


Please take this test. Answer in the shortest time possible but be careful to answer and or perform the task given, correctly. (You are competing among our friends)

1. Touch all of the teeth in your mouth with your tongue, starting at one point and never retracing over an area you have already done. (Should be snake like in shape)
2. Close your eyes. Place one hand in front of your face. Can you see the difference between when your hand is there and not there. (without peeking)
3. Take the number of days in a week and subtract them from the number of weeks in a year. Now take that number and subtract them from the number of days in a year. Is the number left over less than 300?(do this quickly)
4. If a unicycle has one wheel and a tricycle has three wheels, what has two wheels?
5. Clap your hands together 3 times then turn your hands and clap the back sides together 3 times. Do this quickly for a total of three times each side. What was the total amount of times clapped?(Softly)

6. (Tell those you care about that you love them and then prove it.)

I could go on forever but I won’t. The answer is you all passed answers 1-5. The interesting questions are the following:
1. Why did you take this test? (Just bored, Trying to prove something etc.?)
2. What was your mood while taking the test? (Happy, focused etc.?)
3. How did you feel after correctly answering each item (smart, accomplished etc.?)
4. What were you wanting to get out of it, in the end (to win, to feel something, etc..?)


I think there is a lot to learn from an exercise like this. We like to feel smart, coordinated and good about ourselves. Even when the questions seem easy and or the task seems silly, we keep going forward, in an effort to feel good about ourselves. When you add language like “compete among your friends” we are more concentrated and enthused because we compare ourselves to others. Sometimes, we may even base our own self worth on these comparisons. Although this exercise may not have worked perfectly, I hope the point was made. Most importantly and on a bigger scale, that life is this exercise.

(Compare to the original questions proposed)

1. We do a lot sillier things than rolling our tongues around our teeth, in an effort to prove things to others that really don’t matter.
2. We spend our lives with our eyes wide open, and still can‘t see what is right in front of our faces
3. We spend our lives figuring out and regurgitating unimportant statistics, in the hopes of impressing.
4. We take for granted what we spend the most time with, while focusing on learning the less common.
5. We follow without a sense of real purpose, not examining motive, only to belong
6. We strain to see what sounds boring and can feel like a burden, even though it is what truly matters

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you come up with this or did you get this from a book? Seriously. I found it very profound & engaging. Good stuff. Love you!

Alex said...

No book, all just crazy me.
Thanks,
Love you too

Anonymous said...

I loved this one! Definitely one of my favorites.