Counting Up vs. Counting Down

(Short one this time; both the kid and I have been sick.)

Background 1: This is a super straightforward basic little model, but it’s been surprisingly helpful for a fairly large number of the people I’ve shared it with so far. The core idea is that you’re using one term/one concept slot for a thing that’s secretly two very different things, and making an effort to split them apart in your mind is beneficial in a lot of different situations.

Background 2: I’m currently writing a nonfiction book whose overall form is something like “a set of dictionary entries from alien words to English.” This essay is derived from a chapter in that book, just like sazen. I’m going to go ahead and leave in the linguistic bits, because I think they’re fun and I’m too tired to do a full rewrite. Unlike with sazen, which didn’t have an English equivalent, in this case you can just say “counting up” and “counting down” if you don’t want to remember my silly little made-up words.

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Chapter 5: Counting Up, Counting Down

For this chapter, we’re going to start with the words.  There are two of them, and they’re similar on purpose, so you might want to stare at them for a few extra seconds, to make sure you can tell them apart:

The first word is pronounced “mahi,” a little bit like “coffee.”  The second is “mahu,” like “got you.”

Mahi goes up, in your mouth, when you say it.  Like, going from “ah” to “ee” feels like rising, and that’s on purpose.  Mahu is the opposite—going from “ah” to “oo” feels like sinking or falling.  They’re two words that are meant to be like mirror images, or like the two sides of a coin.

Mahi means “counting up from zero.”  (That’s why it’s the one that goes up.)  It’s when you start with low expectations, and you pay attention to every good thing on top of those low expectations.

For instance, you might look around at the human species and think something like hey, we’re doing pretty well!  We’ve got clean water and warm houses and vaccines and internet—if my caveman ancestors could see me now, they’d be amazed at how wonderful my life is.

When you start from a baseline of [what life was like in caveman times], and you count up from there, there is a lot to be grateful for!

Mahu, on the other hand, means “counting down from perfect.”  (And that’s why it sounds like it’s getting lower.)  It’s when you start from how things should be, according to your own standards and values, and you dock points for every way in which reality isn’t measuring up.

For instance, you might look around at the human species and think something like seriously?  We’re polluting the planet and preventable diseases are coming back and somehow there are STILL Nazis and school shootings and cancer and people being evicted from their homes and—

When you start from what “good” or “perfect” would look like, and you count down from there, there’s a lot to be disappointed about!

In counting up, what counts is all the stuff you’re getting right, all the stuff that’s going well.  In counting down, what counts is all the stuff you’re getting wrong, all the stuff that’s going badly.

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The main reason I want to teach you separate words for mahi and mahu is that a lot of people don’t realize that they’re two completely different things.  A lot of people lump them both together under words like “feedback” or “criticism” or “evaluation,” and this causes a lot of problems.

For instance, imagine that you’re just starting out learning a new and difficult skill.  You’re playing the violin, maybe, or taking up karate.

Imagine that, as you’re learning, the person teaching you is counting down from perfection.  When you play that first note, or try that first kick, they have a million criticisms (since, yeah, your first try is probably going to have a million things wrong with it!).  And each time you try again, all you hear is what’s flawed, what’s missing, what’s wrong, over and over and over again.

It’s pretty easy to imagine getting demoralized, in a situation like that!  If your little bits of progress aren’t noted and celebrated—if all you ever hear is “still not good enough, still miles from good enough”—then it could get pretty difficult to stay motivated.

Imagine, on the other hand, that you’ve been doing this thing for five years now.  You’re putting on a recital for the governor, or you’re in the middle of testing for your black belt.

In this case, it doesn’t make sense to count up from zero.  Black belts aren’t for people who’ve learned a little bit of martial arts—they’re for people who have mastered the fundamentals.  At a black belt test, it’s right and appropriate for there to be a high bar, and for anything that isn’t perfect to count against you.

(In fact, if you were testing for your black belt, and somebody started congratulating you on all sorts of little basic things like how well you did a front kick, you might start to think that they were mocking you, or that they had really insultingly low expectations for you!)

When you’re just starting out, you usually want to count up, not count down. You want to track and celebrate your progress.

When you’re getting close to the finish line, you usually want to count down, not count up. You want to keep your eyes on the prize and not get complacent.

If you’re struggling and feeling vulnerable, a little bit of counting up can give you the courage to keep going, and a little bit of counting down can be crushing.

If you’re in a situation where getting it right really matters, then counting down can help keep you locked in and striving hard, while counting up can feel patronizing or distracting.

The problem is, out there in the world, most people don’t seem to notice that these are two fundamentally different approaches—that each tool is appropriate for different situations.  They just call both things “feedback,” and there’s no consistency or coordination on which one to do when.

(And no quick/easy way to specify which one you want!)

Some people default to one approach or the other (e.g. they think of themselves as “supportive” and only ever count up, or they think of themselves as “hardcore” or “having high standards” and only ever count down. 

Even worse, some people just seem to pick at random, doing whichever one feels right to them in the moment, without pausing to check whether it actually makes sense for the situation at hand.

And if you’re expecting encouragement, but instead you get a flood of perfectionist criticism—

(Or if you’re looking for detail on how to improve, but instead they just keep telling you how well you’re doing—)

When people don’t notice that counting up and counting down are different, this can lead to some pretty big miscommunications.  Wasted time.  Hurt feelings.  Frustration, both on the part of the giver and the receiver.

Just being aware of the fact that mahi and mahu are not the same can make a huge difference.  Just pausing to ask yourself hey, is this the sort of situation where I should expect things to be pretty rough, starting out, and should focus on each little bit of progress?  Or is this the sort of situation where we should expect to actually get it right, and should focus our attention on the places where we’re falling short?

And it helps to be able to ask other people to shift modes, too.  Other people won’t know the words mahi and mahu, but you can do the long version:

“Oh, hey, I notice that everybody keeps talking about all the things we’ve accomplished so far, but I’m actually scared we’re not going to finish on time—could we maybe shift gears a little, and make a list of all the things we still need to get done?”

Looping back around to the of this whole book … remember in chapter 2, when I kept harping on about how it’s fine if things don’t click right away?  If it takes a while before any given bit of wisdom sinks in?

That’s because this project—the project of helping you level up as a human, and become as awesome as you can as quickly as you can—

That’s a project where we definitely need to count up, not count down.  There is so much to learn, and so many ways to screw up, that I genuinely think the right attitude to have, going in, is “let’s just try to at least be a little less lost and confused than we would’ve been by default.”

By default, humans are basically just slightly smarter monkeys, evolved to hang out on the edge of the savannah and hopefully not get eaten by cats.  The stuff we’re dealing with now, as a species, is way above our pay grade, and so (according to me) it’s a good idea to be nice to yourself, and patient with yourself, and to celebrate every little bit of clarity and skill that you manage to scrape together.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.  Hang in there, okay?