"Blink", the Power of Thin Slicing

“Blink”, the power of thin slicing

Do we make the best decision when we take the time to carefully evaluate all available and relevant information? Certainly that is what we have always been told.

In his second published book, a #1 National Bestseller, called “Blink, The power of thinking Without Thinking”, Malcolm Gladwell provided stories, his observations and synthesized his research results into a revolutionary thesis.

It is about rapid recognition, the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. When we engage in rapid recognition, the initial “two seconds” snap judgment can occasionally be really good. There is a phrase in psychology “the power of thin slicing”, which says that as human beings we are capable of making sense of situations based on the thinnest slice of experience.

My wife had often said to me that one of her friends, a senior Christian church member, once told her: “The very first decision we make when we wake up in the morning is always the best one”.

All these remind me of my recent frightened experience, which, though, was instantly solved after my wife’s “two seconds” decision. Here is the story:

It was during our recent trip to Egypt. One evening when we returned to a Hotel in Luxor, I realized my passport and significant amount of cash, which were nicely place in a bag and hid inside my shirt with a string loop hanging over my neck, were gone. We spent the entire evening trying to figure out how it could happen. We looked through the luggages, purses, pockets, and places we were in the hotel and bus, and there was no luck. The tour guide then advised us to go to the local police station to get a police report, then go to the American Embassy to request a temporal passport when we returned back to Cairo the following morning. Obviously, it would take at least half of the day, if not the entire day.

We were further told by our tour guide that we needed to hire a taxi to catch the group in Mt Sinai, which was a 4-5 hours drive from Cairo and we would pass through the abandoned desert and harsh mountains during the evening or night. We were frightened! We were simply waiting for the worse, or we might just terminate the trip and return to the States after I have the temporary passport.

Then the miracle came. At exactly 0400 the following morning, I saw my wife got up and immediately went to my luggage, which was lying on a heavy wood box against the wall. In the darkness, she pulled out the heavy wood box and then inserted her hand into the tiny space between the box and wall. And, without a direct visualization, there she touched the bag with my passport and cash inside. We were immediately relived.

I then asked my wife how she knew she needed to get there and retrieve it. She told me she had kept praying the night before and when she woke up, she felt like she needed to do it and she did it spontaneously, a “snap” but good decision upon awakening, as she used to be told by her church friend. But I believe there is more than that. It is her belief and trust in God.

As how I had my passport and cash bag slipped into that tiny space between the wall and the heavy wood box, that is another story!

Yeh Tze