Original Publication Date: September 30, 2016

You’re reading this! How did that happen? Were you held hostage until you finally relented, grabbed your computer and clicked and searched and found this blog? Did you know you would be reading these words when you woke up today? Did you plan on this? How did this happen? What happened? And why did it happen? Who is in control here?

Prod, push, jolt, bump, coax, encourage, prompt, stimulate, nag, goad, jab, shove, elbow, induce, motivate, hunch, provoke, spur, arouse, incite, pester, persuade, irk, cajole, entice, tempt, convince. A premonition or a gut feeling.

Something that moves you. Slightly. Not too much. But just enough. Just enough to get you there, from here. Obvious in hindsight. Sometimes oblivious in the present. Seen and unseen. Known and unknown.

A nudge!

I have been intrigued by nudges since I’ve been very young, although I didn’t use this verbiage. I didn’t understand the world I found myself. I was born at a time of international strife. When groups of people were being oppressed for their beliefs. When different groups of people were struggling with their social identities. A time of uncertainty. And yet, a time of high hopes and positive anticipation for the future. I couldn’t understand the optimism.

As a young boy, I struggled with why adults did what they did. Why actions and words didn’t always align. Why the world seemed to want peace and also wanted war. Something was going on that I couldn’t see. Hidden meanings. Was this all a conspiracy? To keep me in the dark?

I struggled with my behavior. Why didn’t my words and beliefs align with my actions? How could I know what to do, and do something else? What was making me act this way? And how did I get to be the person I was? Who was doing this to me?

Why did I choose to move one way, and not another? Were my decisions completely random, or did I have any influence at all? Did I just exist as a preprogrammed organism predestined to live out this life in a certain way? And then, a nudge!

A nudge for me to realize perhaps there were things I didn’t know about. And then, another nudge, maybe there were things I didn’t know that I didn’t know! Thoughts and ideas that were completely hidden from me. What was happening?

A nudge!

That was it. I was being nudged, sometimes without my conscious consent. Nudged into a way of being. Nudged into doing things against my beliefs and words to the contrary. Over and over again.

And, I wasn’t the only one! I saw others being nudged. To act in ways that I could never predict. To act contrary to their consciences!

In the past several years, several books have been written on the power of the nudge. Many of them were marketing books. Books that explain why we buy what we buy. Other books explain how we decide what we decide. Still, others have been written about the subtle ways we select a mate or job or an employee.

My insight is that we are in control of the nudges. We determine how and when we will allow ourselves to be nudged. Talent, skill, birth order, family wealth, good looks and luck all have a lot to do with where you are today and who you are.

How many success stories exist only because people were “in the right place, at the right time?” Was it all a coincidence? Just dumb luck? Or was something else happening? Was something nudging those fortunate few into those right places? At the right times?

Seems all too suspicious, doesn’t it. Besides, if it was some mystical force just nudging select people at just the right moment, why shouldn’t we all just wait for the special nudge to happen to us? Why try to encourage fate to select us, if it’s just a random event? And, if it happens while we’re still alive, that’s great! If not, then why worry about it and just resign ourselves to live lives of quiet desperation until we die? Not a particularly healthy way, or fun way, to live our lives.

Life doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a series of nudges, some large, some small, some intentional, some by mistake, but all of our lives are experienced one second at a time. It can’t be otherwise. Second by second. Nudge after nudge. Our lives are created. We become.

Nudge: Where have you been nudged in the last 28 minutes?

Nudge, nudge: Looking back over your life, identify one nudge you were completely unaware of when it happened.