One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

by Robert Maurer

This common but counterproductive phenomenon is captured in a familiar joke: A drunk is on his hands and knees looking for his keys under a streetlight. A policeman approaches him and asks, “What are you doing?” The drunk replies in a slurred voice, “I’m looking for my keys.” The policeman further inquires, “Where did you drop them?” The drunk says, “Over there,” pointing to the end of the city block. The policeman scratches his head and says, “If you dropped the keys over there, why are you looking for them over here?” And the drunk replies, “Because the light is better over here.” When life gets scary and difficult, we tend to look for solutions in places where it is easy or at least familiar to do so, and not in the dark, uncomfortable places where real solutions might lie.

I know well the tendency to go where comfortable. Gains are found when you go where needed instead.