Sample Size Too Small - 10/18/19

I don’t like meat. It’s always chewy and dry. I don’t like vegetarian food. It’s bland and has no flavor. I don’t like sushi. It smells fishy and I always get sick. Men are such assholes. Women are such bitches. Nobody wants to hire me. I’ve sent out 5 applications. There are no good candidates. I’ve received 5 applications. No more relationships/marriage/dating. It never works out. I suck at <insert activity>. I’ve tried it once.

These are all things I’ve heard people say, including myself.

Whatever it may be, we’ve all tried that thing for the first time (or few times) that made us quit it altogether. A bad date, a dish that didn’t quite sit well with us, a conversation with that asshole with their racist/sexist comment/joke.

We mustered up the courage, took a swing at-bat, and it didn’t quite work out the way we thought it would. Then pow… we vowed not to do it never again.

It’s the other person, the food, the environment, the industry. It’s the other “thing” that sucks.

So fuck it.

Sound familiar?

I find myself surprised at how quickly people can give up on a goal or idea after a natural first failure. I consider myself a prudent optimist, but an optimist nonetheless.

Speed is an overabundant commodity these days. We have become accustomed to a constantly and instantly accessible world filled with resources, information, beautiful people, and luxuries. But the world wasn’t always this way. People built cathedrals over millennia, improved on technologies over generations, and spent decades mastering a craft. Just look at sushi chefs, who can spend a decade training how to make rice.

We forget that not everything works out the first time. Social media is great at hiding the fact that processes, achievements, and experiences don’t always work out the first time. As creators and viewers, we just want to skip to the end and show the thing so we can get the likes, the feels, and the glory. All we see are the successes and never the failures. In fact, it’s why I started Fuck Yeah, Friday in the first place. I wanted to expose me and to the world of how long success can take and what it entails. The emotional rollercoasters, the rushed posts, and the run-on sentences. I’m not perfect either, but the difference is no longer being afraid to show it.

Angry Birds was Rovio’s 52nd game. Boxer, Vitas Gurulatius, fought 17 matches before his first win. And of course, Thomas Edison attempted to light a filament over 10,000 times before that first glowing light bulb that extended the length of our days.

Going on one or two bad dates shouldn’t make one quit dating altogether. As I use to say to my friends, your sample size may be too small to cast judgment. Even if you dated 100 people, is that really enough to say there isn’t anyone out there for you? People may not be assholes because of their gender, race, or occupations. It may be because they are just assholes. Ruling out any category may prevent yourself from being pleasantly surprised.

Win, lose, or draw, we forget that the fun is just about being in the game.

So before you give up for good, there are a few things that you may want to consider. Does your experience represent all the experiences available in that realm? Is there something about ourselves that needs to change? Did we just have a uniquely horrible experience?

While first impressions are impactful, not every first impression is a great indicator of the totality of a thing or experience. So many previous factors could have set the stage for your negative experience. Your date could have had a horrible day. The food could have been prepared by an inexperienced cook with crappy ingredients. Maybe you need to improve yourself in a certain area.

Oh the flip side, after you’ve given it ample opportunities relative to the pool available, maybe you do have a small baseline. This is relative. I once dated eight vegetarians in a row. They obviously did not work out, but their abstinence from meat, while being a common denominator, may not have been the sole reason for incompatibility. I may not have admitted it then, but I am also a factor in that equation.

Before we conclude after one, two, or even a handful of experiences as representing a constant for an entire category, we should keep in mind that our experience could be a one-off, minority, or just shit luck in that particular instance. The world isn’t consistent nor perfect, and summing up group so quickly may prevent us from otherwise enjoyable experiences in the future.

Eggplant. Whiskey. Rum. Craft Beer. And believe it or not, steak used to be on my “Meh” list when I was younger.

I’ve flipped on all of these because I was finally guided to a good if not great experience, thanks to experts in the field.

Continuing is a choice, and so is optimism. A shitty experience makes the best stories and good experiences even better. So before you say no, think about your sample size and be open to a combo breaker that may change your perspective.

Fuck yeah, it’s Friday!

Photo by Elevate on Unsplash