DIRECTION OF ERROR (dàe)

DàE is a simple concept that’s served me well for the last thirty years.  I found it in a conversation with one of my early mentors.  He wore an expensive watch and was very proud of its accuracy.

“I check this every day against the Naval Observatory clock," he said.  "I'm exactly six seconds fast."

"So why don't you set it back six seconds?"  I asked.

"You don't have to be right on," he said, "if you know which direction you're off in and how far."

This is how the notion of DàE came into my life.  One of the great things it’s done is help me stop trying to be perfect (and right) all the time:

"I don't have to be right if I know how wrong I am – and in which direction."

To get the benefits of using DàE, you have to be willing to trade in righteousness for humility.  (Righteousness doesn't want to accept being imperfect; it wants to notice how imperfect everyone else is and judge them for it.  This phenomenon is known as Projection.)  If you aren't willing to see and laugh at your own absurdities, DàE won't work for you.

But let's say your absurdities (like mine) are so blatant you’ve been tripping over them all your life, and sometimes you even think they're funny (Humor & Self-Acceptance).  If so, you're ready for DàE.  Here's how to use it:

CHOOSE A SPECIFIC DIMENSION TO FOCUS ON - It's important to make DàE very specific in terms of both content and situation. (You don’t want to fall in the masochistic trap of having a global DàE.  For example, let's take the dimension of:

Attending to Self                                      Attending to Others

100%                                 50-50                                      100%

Most of us look at this dimension and immediately know what our DàE is (whether we generally attend too much to others or overly focus on ourselves - think Fleetwood Mac's "You give yourself away" versus Sinatra's "I did it my way.”)  But we need to be careful.  Self-perception is not the most reliable of realities.

GET HONEST FEEDBACK FROM THOSE WHO KNOW YOU WELL - Be sure and test whatever conclusions you come to with intimate friends and family.  An easy way to do this is to draw a diagram like the one above and put an X on it where you think your general DàE is.

Show your diagram to five or six people you trust and listen to what they say.  You may simply get confirmation that affirms your self-perception, or you may get surprised.  Either way you learn and understand yourself more fully.  (And the surprises can be pleasant, too, showing you you've developed in ways you like more than you thought.)

USE YOUR DàE  TO HELP YOU COMPENSATE FOR YOURSELF - If your diagram looks like the one above, you probably “give yourself away” to others more than is good for you.  This is my wife's DàE  (mine is the reverse).  If she says she can't find her car keys, I think, "Well, I surely don’t know where they are" and go on about my business.  If I say something about having lost my keys, she jumps up and starts to look for them.  Knowing her DàE has made a noticeable difference.  Even though her first response is still to jump up, she quickly catches herself and says something like, "Oh, right – they’re your keys, aren't they?  Let me know if you really need my help” and then goes on about her business.  Knowing your DàE on different dimensions can work like this for you, too…