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Thursday, May 26, 2011

Understand the "Shortest Possible Route in the Shortest possible Time" Logic

If you want to succeed in life, you have to be ahead of others. this is applicable in education, work, business and life in general. The logic then sounds right meaning that "it is an efficient way of finishing a job or work", right?. The logic then sounds OK eh!. no not really.

But not really in certain situations. you would understand this very well if you see the traffic in India. When you understand this "shortest possbile route in the shortest possible time" strategy is being followed by the driver on the other side, you begin to explain the so called accidents in road traffic.

In Other words the title logic cannot and should not be followed where you want a system to be streamlined and everyone following the same rule. this not only applies in traffic, also in a work place, education, health sector. In short it should not be followed wherever you need people in a organized area such as work place or society in general to follow a prescribed path.

Back to the traffic analogy, driving in a country like UK where the people are prepared to take a longer route so that there is an order is easier and safer, as they do not follow the logic as safety is more important.

however this does create a problem. if everyone follows the exact route, you do not get eccentrics who are often the one who would move in leaps and bounds and often change the world. so you do need eccentrics who are going to be different and think laterally. hence you do need to nurture them and not discourage them completely. for example a person who leaves a college in the middle of his course may be thought of not following the order. but he might be the next Richard Branson!

Back to the title, sounds right and it is right in certain situations. But not really in lot of situations where you do need order when many people are involved.

Hence the best thing we can do is to understand the logic and see the benefits and use them. It is also important to understand when there are dangers when this logic is being used.

For example in Indian Traffic, when you see a pedestrian or cyclist crossing in front of you in a car attempting to move forward. instead of thinking, " is he a maniac trying to kill himself being hit by my car", you would think " go on, i understand your logic"


I will detail how understanding this logic helps you in other situations in future blogs

Regards

Chockalingam