The Petition to Rename it “Sloth Hour”: Traffic Jams and Thinking Things Through

Today’s English lesson: “oxymoron.” The term refers to a figure of speech wherein contradictory terms appear in conjunction. Take, for example, “jumbo shrimp.” “Light black.” “Amtrak schedule.” Perhaps the most familiar example of an oxymoron is “rush hour traffic;” there is nothing rushed about sitting in a line of cars. The next time you’re stuck in one, however, quit complaining. It could be much worse. You could be in China.

If you think your 3-hour stint on the Eisenhower is bad, the Chinese are dealing with one lasting ten days and counting. People who normally take a mere three days to drive from Bejing to Inner Mongolia are cited as saying it will now take “a week or more.” Villagers are taking advantage of the plight to sell overpriced snacks to people playing cards in their trucks, a venture my friend and I considered undertaking once we realized how cheaply we could buy Hostess pies in bulk. What’s the cause of the hold up? They’re building new roads because of the traffic problems. Let that sink in for a minute. The traffic is being caused by a means of decongestion. Irony–the anecdotal version of oxymoron.

You wonder: did no one think that this would be a poor idea? Was there not a better way of getting things done? Is this traffic problem the root of “Chinese fire drills”? It’s one thing to think “short term consequences for long term benefits.” Even construction on I-94 doesn’t cause traffic that lasts for days. Someone must’ve had the foresight to anticipate this counterintuitive side effect. Perhaps this is just a consequence of not thinking things through. Sometimes there’s a better solution to a problem than the first one you see.

The question is: how do we learn to arrive at better solutions? What can force us to take the time to think through our problems? In short, how do we free our minds from taking the first off-ramp from the National Highway 110?

When arriving upon a workable solution, the natural tendency is to assume that it is the end of the process. After all, you set out with a problem, and the goal is to solve it. But the first answer is not always the best answer. One thing to do is to come up with a second, equally workable solution after you’ve landed on your first. The latter solution may mitigate some consequences of the former that you may not have been aware of. It’s also just a good exercise in thinking laterally. Open up your mind to the possibility that there is more than one right answer; thinking about a problem in terms of multiple opportunities rather than a “point A to point B” approach helps you generally become more innovative.

Take the time to play devil’s advocate. Are there any important consequences that your solution might not be covering? Are there any unintended problems that may ARISE from your solution? Talking it over with others helps to illuminate gaps or possibilities that you may not have previously considered. It helps to get out of your own head. You may believe what you’ve arrived upon is best, but someone else might be able to reframe the problem to create a more effective solution. And talking it over with someone who is uninvolved in the actual decision may bring you a completely new perspective. Think of it as a Rorschach test–each inkblot is a different image for each individual who views it. The same is true of the problem at hand. What looks like a new road for you may look like a traffic jam to someone else.

The solution is not the end. Think of other solutions that are just as workable, or bounce ideas off of others to earn new perspectives. Not only does this help with the problem at hand, but you’ll have opened up to new ways of thought. An ineffective solution to one problem may be a perfect fit for another.

On second thought, this traffic jam may be the answer to my post-collegiate debt. How many boxes of perishable food items can I take on an international flight?

To our readers: what helps you think things through?