Edoardo Ballerini

A woman I worked with some time ago told me that in order for me to make massive changes in my life, I would have to change myself by about two percent.  Surely, she’s mad, I thought.  What’s needed here is a full out 180 degree turnaround, a 100% re-imagining of who and what I am.  Anything short of that is going to fall short of the mark.

She pressed on, pointing out that to her eyes and ears, I was already 98% the person I claimed to want to be.  What was missing, she argued, was a very small piece.  She’s mad indeed, I thought again.  Why I’m listening to her at all is a mystery…

I recently had a similar conversation, though on the other side of the ledger, as somebody made the sweeping statement that she needed a full out radical change of course in her life.  The earlier madness that came my way must have been contagious, because I reflexively thought, no, what you need to do is change yourself by about two percent.  And I went on to make the same case that was made to me some time earlier.

Yes, two percent is the magic number, I decided.  Change the self by two percent, change course by two degrees, increase your savings by two percent and watch that interest compound.  It’s the small things in life that add up.  Two percent it is.

But as I rode home on the subway today I was struck with another thought.  Scientists and eight graders are fond of pointing out that the genetic difference between man and ape is roughly in the two percent range.  If that’s the case, then this whole “change myself by two percent” is a wild over-estimation.  If two percent represents the difference between hurling feces and putting a man on the moon, then I’m thinking I need to change myself by about .00001 percent.

And I think I can manage that.

For the Mineralava Musings, this is Edoardo Ballerini.