Nazarian - 500 words to save the world

You don't have to have all theanswers
to tackle the big questions

Stephen S. Nazarian

Smashwords Edition 1.0

Copyright 2016 by Stephen SNazarian

Dedicated to my wife Emily who isalways encouraging me
to say what I have to say with fewer words.

Copyright 2016 Stephen S.Nazarian

All rights reserved.

This ebook is licensed for yourpersonal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or givenaway to other people. If you would like to share this book withanother person, please purchase an additional copy for eachrecipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, orit was not purchased for your use only, then please return to yourfavorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you forrespecting the hard work of this author.

When I startedmy blog in March 2014, I had a short list of goals:

• Talk about creative problem solving

• Share stories that were entertaining andinsightful

• Create a community where like-minded people coulddiscuss challenges and solve problems together

I has succeeded on one and two, but number three hadremained somewhat elusive. So, I decided to do something aboutit.

In February 2015, I began posting a single problemfollowed by a solution in no more than five hundred words. I didthis exactly ten times.

The famous physicist Richard Feynman was once askedby a Caltech faculty member to explain why spin 1/2 particles obeyFermi-Dirac statistics. He gauged his audience perfectly and said,I'll prepare a freshman lecture on it. But a few days later hereturned and said, You know, I couldn't do it. I couldn't reduceit to the freshman level. That means we really don't understandit.

Albert Einstein has been quoted as saying:

If you cant explain itsimply,
then you dont understand it well enough.

My research shows that he never actually said this,but I like the sentiment and it is a logical simplification of whatFeynmen said, and as such a proof of its own point.

I for my exercise, I chose problems to which I couldoffer a solution in exactly five hundred words. I set out withideas as simple as:

How to improve the water pressurein your faucets and showers.

to as complex as:

How we can we reasonably reformour federal tax system?

I decided nothing would be off limits, and I askedfor contributions from my readers. I asked them to send me theproblems that kept them up at night and I promised to take on theones where I could offer a reasonable approach within theconstraints of the exercise.

I received a fewsuggestions.

Now, to be clear I had no delusions that I would beoffering the only or even the best solution to any of theseproblems. My goal was to offer a straightforward, logical approachthat could be explained to any human being capable of reading fivehundred words.

My hope was my writing would inspire discussion,debate and meaningful banter. I am not the guy with all the answers(is anyone?), but with my website and more than 200,000 words undermy belt, I did have a platform on which to execute this grandexperiment.

When I wrote this introduction I had the first topicset, but beyond that I didn't know where things would go. The rest,as they say, is history and I am hoping by combining all of theessays into this little book, they might find their way out intothe world a little further.

This eBook is not copy protected, so please share itfreely. Lets talk about this stuff. If were lucky, we just mightmake history.

By the way, this introduction is exactly fivehundred words.

After askingfolks to send in their problems, I received a message from a readerin Texas who wrote:

Being a parent yourself pleasetell me,
how do I get my 5 year old and 3 year old (both girls)
to get along for more than 5 minutes?

I had a heavier topic planned for this firstinstallment, but after reading this question I couldnt shakeit.

Small children, appear to us adults like littleJekyll & Hydes. Sitting on your lap reading a book they arethe sweetest things in the world; however moments later they canissue a completely credible murder threat to a younger sibling oversomething as small as a liquid-filled fruit snack. (Our boys referto these as fruit zits, but I digress.)

As they age, they get (a little) better atexpressing their thoughts, feelings and desires, but at three andfive this is something they cannot yet doalone.

So what is a parent to do when, the little creaturesthey love more than anything treat each other like characters onThe Sopranos?

This is where this mysterious thing called parentingkicks in, and although Ive never done exactly what I am about tosuggest, my wife and I have had luck with similar approaches.

1. Get nine pieces of paper or index cards (perchild).

2. On the first three pieces of paper write I dontlike it when [sibling name] does/is/other verb

3. On the next three write I wish [sibling name]would

4. On the last three write, I wish [sibling name]knew

Sit with each child separately and bring up recentincidents. Ask how he or she felt about each situation, and thenhelp them fill in each of the cards about the sibling inquestion.

When you're done, sit them down together and playthe cards. There is no wining or losing, but everybody gets thesame say, and they will each learn a great deal about the other.There is no discussion while the cards are being played, onlysharing and listening.

This is much more art exhibit thantrial.

When it is over, each child takes the cards thatbear their name (even if they cant read) as a reminder thatsiblings have feelings too.

I cant promise this will end the fighting, but itwill help them develop the empathy for others that is so lacking inmodern society.

A friend from high school posts things about herkids on Facebook, and she posted this note between her two girlswho are eight and ten.

The names of the two girls havebeen blurred to protect the guilty.

If a five and three year old are communicating likethis by the time they are eight and ten, then you're doingsomething right.

Children learn how to interact with others at home.If you can teach them "love comes first," and everything else isdetails, they will be the next generation we are all hopingfor.

The 2003 book(and 2011 film) Moneyball, tells the story of Billy Beaneand how he and the Oakland As turned Major League Baseball upsidedown with a completely different approach to statistics calledSabermetrics.

The crux of the story is that the conventionalwisdom on player statistics was rooted in a 19th centuryview of the game, and measurements such as batting average, stolenbases, and RBIs, while accurate, were meaningless in the moderngame.

The As started focusing on statistics they believedwere more relevant, and in turn were able to acquire highlyeffective players at low prices; players everyone else wasignoring.

They stopped doing things the waythey had always been done... and they won, big.

With the third lowest payroll in the league, theywon the AL West in 2002, 2003 and 2006. Every team in baseball nowuses Sabermetrics.

~~~~~~~~~

In early 2015 Jim Clifton, the CEO and Chairman ofthe Gallup polling organization, published a piece about theproblems with the Unemployment Rate.

To be sure it was politically motivated (it wascalled