The power of two

People talk a lot about the power of one person to create change. This is definitely true in many situations, but the real power of one is in the inspiration of the many. What I’d like to talk about today is the power of two in changing one life. Well, strike that and make it a possible two lives. Let me explain.

When one person sets out to do something difficult, that person often falls quite early, failing his or her challenges and not achieving the goals he/she set out to achieve. For example, if I were to decide to get in shape on my own as I have many times, chances are I’d fail because I’d just be following the same pattern I always have and eventually I’d be tempted to give up, eat wrong, be lazy, etc. The power of two is the person with whom you choose to partner to achieve your goals. In fitness, this is quite common, I’d say. People often have gym partners, running partners, etc. My partner in running is now my wife, Steph. When one of us doesn’t really feel like going for a run, the other person can Steph in and exert a little positive pressure where it is needed. For me, this is very important because I find that I can get pretty lazy and it really helps to have someone else in the same situation, going through the same things and trying to achieve the same goals. It means I’m not alone and that if I fail myself, I’m also failing someone else. It adds that little bit of guilt to quitting which I don’t want to experience so I simply don’t.

So we know that two people can work well together to achieve fitness, but what about working together in other ways? People work in teams in their careers or jobs, they work together in marriages and as parents, and they often work together on projects which they enjoy. One example I have in my personal life is the HandRooster webcomic. My skills are primarily in writing and thinking up ideas, not drawing. When we started HandRooster Steph did the drawing (once in a while she’d write a comic as well) and I did the writing and it worked for a while but she really had a much greater workload than I did. Because of that, she ended up giving up on it and I had to go it alone. This was difficult for me because as I said, my skills are in writing and thinking, not drawing. I tried my best to come up with different ways of doing things. It worked to some extent but I could never quite do the excellent job she did. Her skills in drawing are better and it just wasn’t natural for me. She saw me struggling with the comic the other day and ended up volunteering to work on it again. We’ve done a few now and we’re doing them in a way which I hope is more sustainable for her. She draws them on paper and I scan them in, clean them up, do any coloring which needs to be done and then I write my post and upload the comic. I think this is a more balanced approach and I hope it works in the long run. It just goes to show you that if you communicate as a team of two and divide your efforts and work things out, you can achieve results which just aren’t possible as a single person with a single set of skills. Simple, but true.