The Centipede Dilemma

“Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendships a fine art, drink deeply from good books—especially the Bible, build a shelter against a rainy day, give thanks for your blessings, and pray for guidance every day.”

John Wooden

Every so often, I draw a blank on what to write about. I find myself wracking my brain and ruminating about my dilemma, and I will find ways to procrastinate through distraction. Of course, that only makes it worse because what I’m trying to avoid or delay is always lingering in my psychological ether.

As Carl Jung said,?

“What you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”

There is no substitute for doing. I’m not saying being rash, thoughtless, and risky. Just get into action somehow, someway. Get started because that’s often the most challenging part. As Peter Thiel calls it, it’s the challenge of going from Zero to One.?Doing so may require some physical activity to get the blood circulating and endorphins flowing. Or, in my case, just start writing. Write something, anything. Don’t worry about the inner critic. That is what editing is for. No great work ever just appeared. It had to be crafted.?

I recently came across a term I had never heard of and thought it was relevant to this blog post. It is the Centipede Dilemma.?British psychologist George Humphrey coined it and relates to a toad being so impressed by how a centipede walks that his curiosity gets the best of him and he asks the centipede how he does what he does. A poem he read contributed to coming up with Humphrey’s Law and the Centipede Dilemma. At the end, I will reprint a more extended parable based on the Centipede Dilemma, which I think does an excellent job of conveying its salient point.

"A centipede was happy - quite!

Until a toad in fun

Said, "Pray, which leg moves after which?"

This raised her doubts to such a pitch,

She fell exhausted in the ditch

Not knowing how to run."

Humphrey’s Law states that automatization of a task is impaired when it is performed with conscious effort. That is why great coaching focuses on intense preparation for a myriad of situations so that conscious thought does not dominate actions during games. Instead, the goal is for players to rely on habituated reactions and instincts versus conscious thought. This is far easier said than done, especially when playing my favorite sport, tennis, because it is immensely challenging to let go of mistakes or sub-optimal decisions after losing a point. This rumination potential is heightened because there is always a break between points, allowing for reflecting on what you did wrong and what you could have done better. However, the time for doing that is during practice and not in the game.

John Wooden , Bobby Knight , Nick Saban, Bill Belichick, and countless other great coaches always believed that you should practice harder and more intensely than what you end up having to do in the games.

The thrill and satisfaction comes from preparation translating to execution which should then lead to scoring more than your opponent. This isn’t always the case but usually is because, as Russell Wilson has said,

“The separation is in the preparation.”

I love what Nick Saban has said about his overall goal for his football teams . It really speaks to me because in a perfect world I would love to instill such intimidation in my opponent when I play tennis because of the effectiveness of my preparation, skill, decision-making, consistency, courage, determination, and consistency. And when these are all integrated, they enable me to act from habit and instinct and not conscious thought as the latter often opens me up to too many options, over-thinking, and a higher probability of making an error.

“What I would like for every football team to do that we play is to sit there and say, ‘I hate playing against these guys. I hate playing ‘em. Their effort, their toughness, their relentless resiliency to go out every play and focus and play the next play and compete in the game for 60 minutes in the game -- I can’t handle it.’...That’s the kind of football team we want.”

All coaches take time to review videos of past games. This is a very helpful type of self-reflection and learning as we can see ourselves in action after the emotion of the competition has dissipated and have others help us see what we may have missed. We are far more open to constructive feedback and less susceptible to being defensive and insecure when some time has passed and people who only want the best for us are providing the feedback.

Similarly, in our personal lives, we don’t want to live a life devoid of self-reflection that comes from a place of curiosity and continuous learning so we can grow our productive capabilities. What we don’t want to do, however, is turn into Hamlet and ruminate and equivocate and talk and talk with no action and have nothing to show for ourselves except being incapacitated. And even if we do accomplish some things, did we maximize our potential?

As John Wooden said,

“Don’t measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.”

I truly believe that I can act my way into better feelings but I cannot just think my way into them. Of course, helpful thoughts can be a catalyst to get us into action but if it stops at thinking then we won’t feel better because we won’t grow. I believe a principal reason we are put on this earth is to increase our productive capacity in the realm of the physical, emotional, and relational so that we can develop a tool box of life skills that enable us to form fulfilling relationships, help others, generate an income to support ourselves and our families, stay healthy, exercise our muscle of courage, and to identify when to take advantage of opportunities and avoid uncompensated risk.

Action produces information which can then give you important feedback to take the next best action. Rumination does the opposite. It produces very little valuable information and often makes us feel worse about ourselves and overall.??

I know this may not be politically correct but, while I believe therapy has its place, I think many people, particularly those under 30, are far too reliant upon it and see very little improvement when they leave the therapist’s office. One way I know therapy is not working is when people are constantly apologizing for some hurtful act they do repetitively. It means they are unable to have control over their emotions and triggers and life circumstances get the best of them. They end up lashing out at others after they leave the safe confines of the therapist’s office because the real world is very messy and they want certainty and order. Rather than taking a step back and reflecting honestly on their actions and trying to learn from them and use life as their teacher, everything gets looked at through the lens of pathology and that there is something wrong to explain their behavior or inaction.?

Sometimes people are just selfish, narcissistic jerks. The answer is to grow up, take responsibility for your own choices and at some point stop blaming your parents. Get busy, constrain your options, have the satisfaction of doing a job well done, earn money, put it in the bank, and get excited by seeing it grow so that you want to work harder to have it increase even faster. That is how you get out of a rut. It’s not seeing yourself as a victim with numerous pathologies that can only cope with medication. It’s getting into the arena, starting to play the game, have patience, and see the benefits of compounding your skill and money dramatically improve your health and well being.

That’s not to say some people haven’t experienced really bad trauma in their lives and they need intensive professional help. I’m talking about those who see everything through the lens of being a victim or they believe they suffer from psychological ailments that they can use as cover for bad behavior. Don’t be a centipede. Be an in action human. Follow your curiosity, set a goal to conquer yourself first, be there for others, and from this strong foundation of self-knowledge, selflessness, and emotional control what should emerge is a growth mindset, reliability, determination, courage, curiosity, and service. These are the ingredients for leading a very powerful and productive life.?

“You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”

John Wooden

I will sign off with a longer form parable of the Centipede Dilemma .

One day a frog was sunning himself on a lily pad when a centipede came walking by. The frog was immediately entranced by the centipede’s flowing and graceful movement across the pad. He marveled at what an amazing ability the insect had to both time and co-ordinate all of those legs so that the end result was so smooth and precise. While he was a great leaper and strong swimmer, the frog couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of the centipede’s skills. After all, his job was so easy, having to coordinate only two legs and two arms, while the centipede’s was so much more complicated, having to balance one hundred.

Hoping to be enlightened by the insect’s tremendous skill, the frog said to the centipede:

“Kind sir. I am most impressed by your flowing athleticism and your ability to closely synchronize all those legs of yours. I must admit that I myself could never coordinate 100 legs the fine way that you do. Would I be out of line if I asked you, how in the world do you do that?”

Hearing the compliment from the frog, the centipede stopped his movement and began to beam with pride. He had never bothered to think about how he moved because it was just something that he did naturally. He replied: “Why thank you sincerely, Mr. Frog. I do appreciate your kind feedback. However, I need to spend a moment thinking about how I move before I can share with you my secrets. But now that you mention it, I must modestly say that my ability to coordinate all of those legs at once is truly an amazing feat.”

The centipede then began to think very hard about his hundred legs, the order that he had to move each one in and how he timed these movements so precisely. The more he thought about it, the more he marveled at his own ability. However, the more he thought about it, the more complicated the whole process seemed and he couldn’t quite figure out exactly how he was able to do it.

Then he thought, “perhaps if I walk a little bit, I can pay very close attention to how I move and then I will be able to more fully answer the frog’s question.” So he explained his intention to the frog and then got up and began to move. However, no sooner had he taken one or two steps that his legs became entangled in each other and he tripped. Slightly embarrassed, he pulled himself back up and once again set out to try and figure out exactly how he was able to coordinate his movements. Once again his legs became entangled and he again fell to the pad.

Now the centipede’s embarrassment merged with a growing sense of frustration. How was it even possible that he could trip? He had never once tripped in his life and here he had just tripped twice in a row! He quickly righted himself and tried to figure out how best to regain his balance and coordination. He wondered if he was moving his legs out of sequence, or maybe too fast, or perhaps, too slow. He thought about the order of his movement and whether he should start off with the feet on the left side of his body or the right side. However, the more he thought, the more confused he got. This time, after just one step, he went down hard on his face.

His embarrassment and frustration turned to panic. He began to wonder what might happen if he couldn’t ever walk again without falling. He immediately got angry, chiding himself for not being able to do something as basic as walking. However, his frustration and anger did nothing to help him walk. In fact, those feelings seemed to make things much worse. The poor centipede was now an uncoordinated mess, falling all around the lily pad. Meanwhile the frog looked on in curious amusement. Soon the centipede couldn’t even stand up!

He quickly thought about what had gotten him into this mess in the first place and inwardly cursed the frog and his stupid question. He suddenly realized that his own self-consciousness about walking was the one thing that was preventing him from walking. His anger boiled over and he yelled at the frog, “With all due respect Mr. Frog. Don’t ever ask me how I walk again. I do NOT know how I do it and I don’t WANT TO KNOW!” Whereupon he got up without thinking and quickly and smoothly ran off the pad headed for home.

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