I found this in my “random thoughts” note pad on my phone and thought I’d expand upon it.
There’s something I’ve learned from analyzing life and people. A lot of people don’t analyze. And very few people analyze on the margin.
I’m an analyzer. Most of the time I spend thinking about the world around me and how I fit into everyone else’s piece of the puzzle. A lot of times, that leads me to be an over-analyzer (which is definitely not good). However, much of my analysis of others leads me to believe a lot of other people don’t analyze situations as much as I do.
Sometimes I don’t say anything in a situation because I don’t want to offend someone who’s listening in. When I’m in a group of people there are times where someone chimes in with a witty remark only to come across as offensive to someone else. I’ve made plenty of witty remarks, and have probably offended people, but I try to analyze the people around me and look for cues that I was offensive.
The other side to my statement is analyzing on the margin. This goes back to Carl Menger the “founder” of marginal utility. Basically, marginial utility is the amount of utils (pleasure, happiness) one gains from each increasing consumption. Imagine eating a piece of cake. The first piece is delicious but slowly your utils (desire to devour) slows down as you become bloated with sugars.
Anyway, analyzing on the margin is similar. Your analysis doesn’t occur within a vacuum but instead in between the utils. If you determine you made a mistake within a given situation, how likely are you to repeat that mistake? Do you keep digging yourself a hole during that conversation? Do you repeat the same mistake a day later?
When I analyze, I also read into the reaction of the person I’m discussing with. I try to find out if they find value in my words. If they don’t, I’ve learned two lessons. One, I probably shouldn’t keep going down this path of discussion. And two, this may not be a discussion worth having with others, I might not want to repeat myself in the future.
I think analyzing people is a really interesting trait. It definitely makes me overly aware of emotions around me but it also gives me a chance to better myself. Analyzing on the margin builds my self awareness and gives me a chance to grow into someone better than my previous self.