In the Blink of an Eye

In the Blink of an Eye

In The Blink of an Eye

Territa Wilkinson

[Professor]

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[Date]

Summary: This essay narrates a personal experience based on the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.

IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE

Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking, a book by Malcolm Gladwell, is a book about rapid cognition or that quick, fast thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. The book is about snap judgments or decisions we make that happen so fast that we are confronted only with the impact and the consequences of such decisions moments after these were made. The book Blink encourages people to trust more in their instincts and intuition, to learn how to listen to their guts and act accordingly. For the first time, someone is actually saying that in more and more cases, it is better to act accordingly and quickly given a particular situation than to hesitate and engage in procrastinations for the sake of rational thinking.

One particular situation mentioned in the book was the story of how the doctors in Chicago’s Cook County Hospital drastically changed their standard procedure in the way they diagnose patients who suffered from heart attacks. They were told to gather less information about their patients and to focus only on very critical pieces of information in making their diagnosis. Although the doctors were understandably hesitant to pursue this particular course of action, eventually the Cook County Hospital became one of the best hospitals in the country at diagnosing chest pains.

This situation struck me because from my own personal experience, I now strongly agree that the more data you have, the higher is the chance of ending up making a wrong decision. I talk about a major family decision to buy a new and bigger house in a better location three years ago, while maintaining our old family house. At that time, the entire family was excited to buy a new house and everyone was involved in this...

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