How To Not Do Something

How many times have you read a book and come across a passage that contains the phrase "do not do this" or "do not do that". How many times have you wholeheartedly agreed that the thing that should  "not be done" should in fact "not be done", but for some reason when it comes to actually not doing the thing that the text says should not be done, you find that you're stumped. Even though the text that describes the thing that should "not be done" is absolutely clear about what should "not be done" you feel perplexed, paralysed and at a loss to understand why you can't move forward and do, or rather not do, what is clearly described in the text before you.

A solution to the above conundrum becomes clear when you consider the following example. Let's suppose you're reading a health and safety manual. As you read the manual you come across a section that tells you "not to run on wet floors". This is clear enough and you completely agree with what is being said. So, the next time you come across a wet floor what do you do? You walk. And by walking your "not running".

So, how does the above example provide a solution to the problem outlined at the beginnig of this post? Well, if you look at the example you can clearly see that you fulfil the requirement of "not doing something" by doing something else. We fulfil the requirement "not to run on wet floors" by walking.

So when people become stumped when they come across passages that tell them "not to do something" the reason for this is that instead of doing something else that would fulfil the requirement of not doing the thing that they have read they should not do, they just focus on the phrase "do not do whatever " without actually doing anything. In the health and safety example given above that would be like just focusing on the phrase "do not run on wet floors" without even considering the fact that when you next encounter a wet floor you should walk.

So, the next time you come across some text that tells you not to do something please remember that there is something else you must do (which is described either immediately after the text that explains what you should not do or else somewhere else in the full document) such that if you do that "something else" you fulfil the requirement "not to do" the thing you've just read about. 

Don't just focus on the "do not do" part of the text: do something!