"The Clarity Paradox"

We've all heard of the saying that "less is more." Personally, I've never really bought into the idea or experienced the "more" part of this saying (after all, "less" is generally, well, just..."less"), until today, after stumbling on an article called The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. In this article, the author, McKeown, talks about the idea of success, and the reasons why some find success while others simply don't. He attributes success (or lack of success) to something he calls "The Clarity Paradox," which, in a nutshell, claims that "success is a catalyst for failure." McKeown explains the paradox like this:

1. When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success.
2. When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.
3. When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.
4. Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

After reading this, I have to admit that I see his logic. So many people (and organizations) reach a certain level of success, and find themselves with opportunities and options that they never had before; kind of like a kid in a candy store with too much money to spend. Unfortunately, what happens every now and then is that we spread themselves too thin (and sometimes make bad investments) in attempts to run after new opportunities.This, of course, is not to say that opportunities are a bad thing - we just need to make our decisions wisely and carefully to mitigate any negative outcomes. 

At this point, you may be asking yourself how one can maintain success without falling into the "Clarity Paradox." Luckily, McKeown gives three suggestions for his audience: 

1. Use more extreme criteria.
2. Ask: "What is essential?" and eliminate the rest.
3. Beware of the endowment effect.

If you want in-depth explanations of those suggestions, I encourage you to read McKeown's article, after all, they are his ideas, and they are conveyed much more clearly in his own words. In the end, if you remember nothing else, remember this: we need to stive to adopt a "disciplined pursuit of less" by "purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials." I know this may seem like common knowledge to many of you, but the way I see it, this is pretty good advice not only for success in our careers, but for success in all aspects of our lives as well. 

Akagera

Kigali's Abandoned Amusement Park

The best thing about traveling to a new place is finding the city's best hidden secrets. These hidden secrets can take on many forms; a hole in the wall restaurant, an awesome market or shopping area, a breathtaking view. However, in all my years of traveling, the one thing that I never expected was to find an abandoned amusement park. I wish I could say that I had indeed "stumbled upon" this phenomena by accident, but in reality, I only found this place because of my determination to find out if the surrounding rumors had any truth to them.

So, early Saturday morning, after having enjoyed a lovely breakfast, Deke and I set out to solve this mystery for ourselves, once and for all. It took a while of searching and a few wrong turns, but finally, we found ourselves standing in front of about a dozen red bumper cars, overgrown with weeds, dust and cobwebs - the usual result of neglect. We turned the corner and found even more abandoned parts; unicorns (for a carousel perhaps?), dolphins that twirled, water boats for the nearby lake, and even an indecently exposed mermaid. Needless to say, this expedition was pretty creepy but pretty awesome all at the same time, and made for a pretty exciting Saturday morning!

Rwanda's Museum of Natural History

Today, Deke and I decided to visit the "Museum of Natural History," located right in Kigali, not far from the town center. It never really occurred to us that the museum was something we wanted to visit, but it seemed like a good idea given the fact that we didn't have much to do today. For the equivalent of about 10USD (half price with a student ID or proof of residency!), we were able to get 30 minute's worth of entertainment at the museum. I wouldn't say that it was worth my money, but I did get a few laughs in, so that's always a win in my book! So, before you continue further to the "tour", you should disregard any preconceived notions you may have regarding the words "natural history" and "museum" - unfortunately, museums here are just not the same as they are at home. With this in mind, sit back, relax, and enjoy your visit! 

This exhibit, entitled "Akagera," depicts the wildlife found in Rwanda's safari park.
(notice the diversity of animals that share the same habitat; yes, including the river otter on the right)

 

 

 

 

 

 

An array of of artifacts, starring the miniature-sized wooly mammoth.

The dinosaur exhibit (not plastic toys).

The vast variety of East African animals (again, not plastic toys).

Two hippos in battle, with a giraffe overlooking the scene.

Two cubs play as the nearby male watches protectively over his pride.

A mountain gorilla protected inside a glass case.
(notice the authentic elephant skull in the background that has no protection)

Authentic alligator hide, laying on a tile floor, exposed, with no covering.

I hope you enjoyed getting a small taste of Rwanda's Museum of Natural History. If you're ever in-country, I hope you find your way to Kigali and take a look for yourself! I promise it will be worth it, one way or another.

follow the yellow brick road

Street signs (like the one above) have been popping up all over Kigali over the past week and a half. In case you didn't know, street signs are a completely foreign concept here. Sure, there are signs that indicate the general location of different offices or restaurants, but the signs that we rely on so heavily in America simply don't exist here. I'm still trying to figure out what all the letters and numbers mean (K for Kigali, N for...?), but I think eventually I'll understand it. In the meantime, they mean absolutely nothing to me!

I myself am really hoping that these signs will make giving and following directions easier because, as you can imagine, giving directions in a country with no street signs is quite a challenge. Recently, I was invited to a friend's going away party. I had never been to her house, even though it a 10 minute walk from where I live. You'll see after reading her "directions" how creative you need to get when trying to direct people to new places. However, as complicated as it looks, her directions were quite useful. More useful than these street signs, at least! Do the directions to her house make any sense to you?

"To get to our house, drive on the main Nyamirambo road, pass through Biryogo (the busy colorful Mosque area where the road splits and comes back together), continue up the hill, pass the Kobil station on the left, pass the Merez Station/Spectra Bar on the right, and then you will go over two speed bumps. Just after the second speed bump, turn left at the corner with the big SP sign and Inyange milk billboard. (Moto drivers will know this corner as "ERP" in the French pronunciation, "ay air pay.") You will now be on a semi-dirt road. Continue on this road for less than a minute and take the SECOND road on the right. It is uphill and very bumpy. After this turn, take the road that immediately forks left. Continue until the end of this road, for about a minute, when you will come to a big antenna on your right and you will be forced to turn left and downhill. Our house is the second on the right and is the biggest and brightest house in the area. It has a bluish-green gate."

adventures in the pursuit of...tea.

Last weekend Deke and I tried to go to the Sorwathe Tea Factory, which is located about 2 hours outside of Kigali. We thought it would be a neat thing to see - the whole tea making process, that is, and so we decided to make the trek out there. Never having been there before, neither of us really knew what to expect. We hopped on Deke's motorcycle, drove for about an hour, and then finally saw the sign that pointed us towards our destination. Seeing that it was 19km away from the main road, we were a little hesitant. Furthermore, we didn't know if the facilities would be open on a Sunday. We approached a group of moto drivers and asked whether or not they knew anything about the tea factory. In their broken English, they assured us that it was open every day, and urged us to continue following the path. 19km of unpaved, rocky road later, we found out that the Sorwathe Tea Factory was in fact not open. Had this have been the only obstacle during our travels, there would be no story to tell. Fortunately for all you blog readers out there, there is a story to tell.

Well, like I said, we hopped on the motorcycle early Sunday morning and began making our way to the Tea Factory. All was well, even when we discovered that the 19km from the main road to the factory was unpaved. The drive was quite peaceful - the road was tucked away into the recesses of the city, and there was tea growing to the left and right of us the minute we left the main road. The scenery really was quite amazing.

Every now and then, there were Sorwathe Tea Factory signs counting down the number of kilometers left to go. This was, at times, helpful because it offered a sense of perspective. However, if I am to be honest, it was just downright frustrating, since each kilometer felt like an eternity, due to the speed we were traveling (slightly faster than a snail). In my opinion, the only good that these signs offered us was the knowledge of the exact number of kilometers we had traveled before getting a flat tire. Yep. A flat. The back wheel decided it was time for it to retire after kilometer # 17.

Now, if we were anywhere else - I take that back - if we were in Kigali when this happened, it wouldn't have been a very big deal. Remember how I was describing the peacefulness of the drive? Well, driving in a quiet, secluded area is nice when everything is peachy; it's not really nice when you need to find a mechanic or other vehicle-related supplies (like gas).

Not knowing which way would be best to go, Deke started rolling his bike up the hill. I walked on ahead, in hopes that we would find something - or someone - that could help us. Soon, we had a little entourage, children who had found us in our predicament. In my broken Kinyarwanda, I explained to the children that we had a problem, and asked them where we could find a tire. They, unfortunately, pointed up the hill. Deke, with no other choice, kept pushing his bike. A few minutes later, some older men were walking down the hill. One stopped, probably out of curiosity of why a muzungo (foreigner) was pushing a moto up the hill. Again, I explained in my broken Kinyarwanda, that we had a problem, and asked him where we could find a tire.  

Surprisingly, he left his friends and started walking up the hill with us, in the complete opposite direction from which he was originally heading. He then escorted us to a street that had a few stores and about a dozen or so people. Leaving us behind, he ran to an alimentation and proceeded to try to locate someone who could help us. Soon, of course, a crowd appeared, as the situation became quite the source of entertainment. Ten minutes later, a man, whom I assume was a mechanic, appeared with some tools in hand. Together with man #1, they pried off the tire from the rim, and discovered the source of the problem: the inner tube was punctured and could not be repaired. After a series of phone calls and some heavy duty brainstorming, man #1 took off with the damaged inner tube to find a replacement.

Knowing that there was really nothing located nearby, and that it could take an hour for the man to return, Deke and I made ourselves comfortable. So, what does one do for one hour in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by locals of all ages? Make the most of the situation! In my case, making the most out of the situation meant teaching the kids how to make paper airplanes. And then having paper airplane contests. Priceless.

About 45 minutes later, sooner than expected, the man returned with a new inner tube! He and the mechanic swiftly replaced the tube, pumped some air into it with a bicycle pump (I kid you not. You can kind of see it in the picture below), and off Deke and I went, completing the last 2km to our destination.

When Deke and I eventually made it to the Sorwathe, it was closed. All that work for nothing! In retrospect, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time, money, and headache, had we not chosen to visit the tea factory that day. But then again, we would have missed out on encountering this group of individuals that will forever be engraved in my heart. I don't know about you, but I do not know many people who would go out of their way to help two strangers in need.