So, if you can believe it, I've been using my left hand almost exclusively for one year as of today. In celebration, I'm taking a right handed holiday. I know it may sound like celebrating a year of being on a diet by eating a huge slice of chocolate cake, but there is a good reason behind it.
That's because it shows me just how far I have left to go. There is an almost palpable sense of relief in being able to do things just a little more dexterously than usual. With all the skill I've developed on my "off" side, I still have difficulty acquiring new tasks or quickly executing familiar ones.
I've also started to realize how firmly I've established the habits of the last year. I keep picking up my pen with my left hand, and find I have to remind myself to use the right. Once I do, I can write just as readily as before, but the action of writing with the left has become ingrained. I would say that writing is the left handed task that I have acquired most successfully. That's no wonder, since it's the one I've focused on the most, and gotten the most practice with.
However, the vacation ends tomorrow, as does the unconscious coddling. There are certain tasks that I have wussed out on over the course of the year. Cooking, brushing my teeth or hair, carrying things--although I would use my left most of the time, I would find myself switching back to the right when I was in hurry or needed a little "burst" of dexterity. I was doing myself a disservice, because it is in those situations where it is most important to get that training.
And so, starting tomorrow, no more excuses. Either I do it lefty, or I do it over. The only reasons I'll accept to switch back are (a) in a matter of life-or-death, or (b) for cultural reasons (e.g., on a trip to the Middle East).
At the end of the year, I'll see where I'm at. If I can honestly say that my dexterity is pretty much equal, then I've accomplished the first stage of my plan. The next task would be rewiring my habits to make use of whichever hand was most conveniently located for a given task. The final step is doing two things at once, but that's looking far ahead. For right now, I've got a year of frustration ahead of me.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Day 245/245
Okay, so I haven't been posting regularly. Or at all. For the last 200+ days.
Doesn't mean I gave up on my experiment. Way back in July of last year, I said that I would make the attempt to do everything left-handed until St. Patrick's Day, 2009. And now that is upon us.
The experiment came about because Wikipedia made an unsupported claim that in eight months, someone could completely reverse their handedness, if forced to by disability. Moreover, even if that disability were removed, they would maintain the handedness they had developed.
Now, I did not do anything drastic like disabling my right hand. That would be crazy. But I did make an effort to do as much as possible with my left hand for the last eight months, and as little as possible with my right.
The big question is this: Did it work? And the answer is, well, kinda, I guess. I can pick up a pen and write with my right hand just as well (or poorly) as I could eight months ago. My handwriting with the left has drastically improved, to the point that the finished product is almost indistinguishable. The left writes faster than it did, too, although still not as fast as the right.
But writing is only one aspect of the experiment, if the most easily monitored. I've discovered that increasing dexterity with my left hand in certain tasks does have an impact on learning new tasks. There is substantial, but not complete, carry-over.
Let me be a little more specific. When I try to do something with my left hand that I've never done before, it still feels clumsy, at least at first. But I can do it, which is something I wouldn't necessarily have been able to do before. I still feel the urge to switch hands to make it easier, but it's also easier to ignore than it was.
In general, I think that the experiment was a qualified success. Since my right hand was not disabled, it was possible to cheat. Although I only rarely cheated intentionally, I'm sure I cheated without realizing it on multiple occasions. Still, I made significant progress in only two-thirds of a year's time. And I intend to continue the experiment.
Maybe that's the most telling result. The idea of continuing to do everything lefthanded occasions me no frustration at all. None of the initial frustration remains. In other words, after eight months, I'm choosing not to go back to the old way of doing things, even when given the opportunity. That kind of sounds like the hypothesis of the experiment.
So what's next? I want to learn how to do a completely new skill, one that neither hand knows, and I want to do it left handed. I don't know what that will be yet, but when I decide, I will post it here.
Doesn't mean I gave up on my experiment. Way back in July of last year, I said that I would make the attempt to do everything left-handed until St. Patrick's Day, 2009. And now that is upon us.
The experiment came about because Wikipedia made an unsupported claim that in eight months, someone could completely reverse their handedness, if forced to by disability. Moreover, even if that disability were removed, they would maintain the handedness they had developed.
Now, I did not do anything drastic like disabling my right hand. That would be crazy. But I did make an effort to do as much as possible with my left hand for the last eight months, and as little as possible with my right.
The big question is this: Did it work? And the answer is, well, kinda, I guess. I can pick up a pen and write with my right hand just as well (or poorly) as I could eight months ago. My handwriting with the left has drastically improved, to the point that the finished product is almost indistinguishable. The left writes faster than it did, too, although still not as fast as the right.
But writing is only one aspect of the experiment, if the most easily monitored. I've discovered that increasing dexterity with my left hand in certain tasks does have an impact on learning new tasks. There is substantial, but not complete, carry-over.
Let me be a little more specific. When I try to do something with my left hand that I've never done before, it still feels clumsy, at least at first. But I can do it, which is something I wouldn't necessarily have been able to do before. I still feel the urge to switch hands to make it easier, but it's also easier to ignore than it was.
In general, I think that the experiment was a qualified success. Since my right hand was not disabled, it was possible to cheat. Although I only rarely cheated intentionally, I'm sure I cheated without realizing it on multiple occasions. Still, I made significant progress in only two-thirds of a year's time. And I intend to continue the experiment.
Maybe that's the most telling result. The idea of continuing to do everything lefthanded occasions me no frustration at all. None of the initial frustration remains. In other words, after eight months, I'm choosing not to go back to the old way of doing things, even when given the opportunity. That kind of sounds like the hypothesis of the experiment.
So what's next? I want to learn how to do a completely new skill, one that neither hand knows, and I want to do it left handed. I don't know what that will be yet, but when I decide, I will post it here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)