Chris Crouch's Blog

Four Lifespans of a 40 Year Old

I've been thinking about human lifespans today. I think about weird things all the time. Anyhow...someone called me yesterday and in the course of our conversation I found out they were 40 years old. For some reason, it struck me that just four forty-year life spans ago (that would make it 1848), the Civil War was still 12 or 13 years in the future. Then I started thinking about how much has happened in our world in such a short time. For example, here's a few things that had not been invented when my young friend was born in 1968:

• iPods (2001)
• Viagra (1998)
• Commercial E-mail (1993)
• The World Wide Web (1990)
• Prozac (1988)
• Microsoft Windows (1985)
• Cellular phones (1979)
• VCRs (1971)
• ATMs (1969)

Go back forty more years to 1928 and you eliminate the following things from our world because they had not been invented yet:

• Yo-Yos (1929)
• Copy machines (1937)
• Ballpoint pens (1938)
• Color TV (1940)
• Microwave ovens (1946)
• Credit cards (1950)
• Diet soft drinks (1952)
• McDonalds (1953)

Go back forty more years to 1888 and you eliminate the following things from our world because they had not been invented yet:

• Zippers (1893)
• TV (1927)
• Air conditioners (1902)
• Airplanes (1903)
• Talking motion pictures (1910)
• The bra (1913)
• Band-Aids (1923)

The forty-year period before that knocks out automobiles, bicycles, telephones and puts us right in the middle of the events leading up to the Civil War.

Now let's go back a few more lifespans...in terms of evolution a mere blip in time. Anthropologists and archaeologists use a term called behavioral modernity (also known as the Great Leap Forward) to describe something significant that happened to humans about 35,000 to 50,000 years ago. Apparently, something triggered some unusual changes in the brains of our ancestors. Suddenly, in terms of evolutionary time, homo sapiens began to think abstractly and creatively. Between then and now (an evolutionary "bat-of-an-eye") humans invented language, tools, religion, art, music, cooking, Prozac and iPods. The current world average lifespan is 67 years (the world average...not the U.S. average). I don't know about you, but I'm amazed at how much we have accomplished in only about 634 average lifespans (let's average things and say the Great Leap Forward occurred about 42,500 years ago and divide it by the current lifespan of 67 years).

Wow...a lot has happened in a relatively short time! A lot of people have accomplished a lot of stuff! It makes me want to think more carefully about what I do with my time and energy every day. After all, I'm only 634 lifespans forward of the Great Leap Forward. I think I'll spend more time thinking about what really matters in my life today and for the rest of my particular lifespan. I think it is time to let go of some of the things that are inhibiting my forward progress. I think it is time for me to make some kind of Great Leap Forward in my life. Why don't you join me!

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Chris Crouch, president of DME Training and Consulting, has spent years researching and studying both the mental and physical aspects of being productive.

Goodbye Edward Lorenz

Yesterday I read that Edward Lorenz died a few weeks ago at the age of 90. In 1961, Lorenz, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology mathematician and meteorologist, developed a mathematical model to help predict weather. For some reason, he decided to reexamine a previous simulation generated by his computerized weather prediction model. In order to save time, he entered data from his previous printout and restarted the computer simulation in the middle rather than at the beginning. Lorenz apparently assumed data from the new simulation would exactly match data from the previous run. It didn’t!

The two simulations quickly began to diverge dramatically and lost any resemblance after just a few “simulation” months. As it turned out, the computer printout from the previous simulation rounded numbers to three digits and the internal computer memory rounded to six digits. Therefore, instead of continuing the simulation with the previously computed number, in this case .506127, the computer restarted the simulation with the rounded number .506. This ever-so-slight variation in the middle of the simulation triggered significant changes in the ultimate outcome of the simulation. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as “sensitive dependence on initial condition.” It is more commonly called the Butterfly Effect.

Years before Lorenz ran his computer simulation, the idea that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can create tiny changes in the atmosphere that might cause or prevent major weather patterns somewhere else in the world appeared in a short story by Ray Bradbury about time travel. In 1972, when Lorenz failed to provide a title for a planned presentation on this topic to a group of fellow scientists, someone titled his presentation: "Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wing in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?"

Here's the point of the lesson that Lorenz taught us: Seemingly inconsequentially minor events can make all the difference in the world.

Remember, the Butterfly Effect cuts both ways. Minor events can create positive outcomes in the future or prevent negative outcomes. People who understand this are in a much better position to create positive and prevent negative outcomes. What are you doing today, no matter how insignificant it might seem, that will create a positive outcome in the future or prevent a negative outcome? Think about it!

I'm glad people like Edward Lorenz pass through this chaotic world and help us understand it a little better.

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Chris Crouch, president of DME Training and Consulting, has spent years researching and studying both the mental and physical aspects of being productive.