Reflections 18th January

On being taken hostage

Our frog knows the water is boiling. It has a strategy, a plan, even a landing spot identified. So why doesn’t it jump?

Perhaps because, like us, it wants to think it’s wrong; that the water isn’t really that hot and if we concentrate, maybe we can convince ourselves it’s acceptable compared to the uncertainty involved in our strategy. Maybe the water will stop boiling. Maybe….Maybe…Maybe.

It is easy for us to be taken hostage by our fears. We are about twice as sensitive to threat as to reward, and easily persuaded that the threat of the unknown is worse than the discomfort of the present. The organisations we work for, and the companies that sell to us have a vested interest in keeping us hostage, and armies of lawyers to keep us that way, using non competes, digital rights management, and a host of marketers and others skilled in the use of softer, and persuasive methods that promote a version of Stockholm Syndrome, as we identify with our kidnappers. In many respects, it is more tox…