Blowing Up Your Life

Shankar Vedantam (0:00)

This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedantam. The poet Robert Frost wrote about two roads diverging in a yellow wood, a moment when a traveler must choose a path, not knowing where either one leads. In the poem, the traveler is indecisive, first looking down one path and then another. The last lines of that poem have become some of the most famous lines in American poetry. Two roads diverged in a wood, an eye, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

Perhaps you've had moments when you've confronted a similar fork in the road. Should you stay in the city you're living in or move? Should you stay with the person you're with or leave? Should you stick with the job you have or look for a new one?

Many of us peer down the different paths before us, trying to figure out which one will make us happy. But like that traveler in the woods, we find there isn't enough evidence one way or the other. We go weeks, months or years, paralyzed by indecision.

And then, something happens. Maybe it's something big. We get a serious medical diagnosis, or someone we love dies. Or maybe it's something small. You get a traffic ticket, or someone looks at you funny. And all of a sudden, your dilemma is over. You know which way to go. You know which path to choose.

Today on the show, and in a companion episode on Hidden Brain Plus, we examine the unexpected experiences that give us clarity. We look at how and why they are so powerful, and we explore techniques to make the best use of these moments. Stepping into the future and leaving the past behind. This week on Hidden Brain.

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All of our lives are made up by a series of moments. Most of them pass by without our notice. We are busy, or we are on autopilot, or we are paying attention to something else. But all of us also have moments that stand out. At these times, you can suddenly see your own life clearly. You know what to do going forward.

At University College London, psychologist Anthony Klotz studies these moments. He spent years examining how they inform what we do and how they can reveal whom we want to become. Anthony Klotz, welcome to Hidden Brain.

Anthony Klotz (4:17)

Thanks for having me.

Shankar Vedantam (4:20)

Anthony, I want to start with an experience that you had all the way back in high school.

You worked part-time at a lumberyard with a friend. What was the work like?

Anthony Klotz (4:31)

Yeah, so it was on the evenings and weekends of my senior year of high school. I worked in a lumberyard where customers would come in and ask for their two-by-fours to be cut to certain lengths or their plywood to be cut in certain shapes. It was my job to help them get what they needed for whatever home-improvement task they were taking on.

Shankar Vedantam (4:57)

So I understand that you and a friend were doing this work together. Was it a good work environment?

What was the boss like?

Anthony Klotz (5:05)

It was a really fun work environment, and I did work there with my good friend, and that made the hours pass quickly along with the work. Our boss, as he probably needed to be managing young students in a lumber yard, was pretty strict and stern, but that didn't really bother us. It was a good work environment. I enjoyed it.