# Be Better than the Gap By:: [[Brian Heath]] 2023-08-25 There is a quote from the movie *Crazy, Stupid, Love* that has stuck in my brain for many years: Be better than the Gap. Here, the intent is to persuade individuals to dress better and care for themselves, as the Gap is believed to be an "average" clothing retailer. Regardless of one's fashion sense and opinion, the statement is more interesting if we change Gap to gap. What does it mean to be better than the gap? One must define what the gap is. Is it the distance between bad and good or good and great? The gap may be the space between contentment and happiness or fear and guilt. The interesting thing about the gap is that it is simultaneously nothing and everything. In other words, it's our good friend, the paradox. So, there must be something intrinsically meaningful to uncover here. While one can categorize things as good and great, more is needed to describe why that gap exists systematically and what the gap is. For example, market researchers exhaustively explore ways for people to identify features so they can report back what things are indicators of good versus great. But, many products defy this methodology. According to market researchers and engineers, Beta Max was objectively superior to VHS. This didn't matter regarding product adoption as the world declared VHS is greater than Beta Max. The gap is so much more than the sum of the features. As individuals, it's a light switch in a dark room; one just has to flip it. The key isn't knowing how the light switch works to illuminate the room. The key is choosing to look for and flip the switch. Reading books like *Good to Great* may be informative about management and business, just as learning how electricity works is informative about the light switch. But knowing doesn't make one great, happy, or self-actualized. It comes down to choosing to be better. Being better than the Gap is an act of rebellion that could become the ironic and sincere mantra of progress in the Age of Choice. #### Related Items [[The Age of Choice]] [[Thinking]] [[Progress]] [[Paradox]] [[Status Quo]] [[Self-Actualization]]