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Nudge is such a complex word. An oxymoron almost by my definition. Officially though, what is a nudge?

nudge1 /nʌdʒ/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[nuhj] -nudged, nudg·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)

1.	to push slightly or gently, esp. with the elbow, to get someone’s attention, prod someone into action, etc.

“Push slightly” but get “attention” and “action.” Nudging a heavy rock on a cliff is all it takes to get it to topple. I nudge a friend in the side and they will jerk, and maybe hit back! In essence, a nudge is a little action that makes a lot happen and that is the point of this great New York Times article(if it asks for login go here). It tells the story of a San Francisco hospital that instituted a rule that all beds must be propped up no matter what, unless under different doctors orders.

For more than a decade, it turns out, medical researchers have known that people on ventilators should generally have their heads elevated. When the patients are lying down, bacteria can easily travel from the stomach, up to the mouth and breathing tube, and ultimately into the lungs, causing pneumonia. When people are propped up, gravity becomes their ally.

But hospitals have had a hard time translating this scientific knowledge into better medical care. Patients frequently need to be put on their backs, to be bathed or to receive treatment, and once they are lying down, doctors and nurses — busy worrying about dozens of other things — don’t always remember to move the bed back up.

“When you have to rely on someone to do it, it’s not going to happen every time,” said Dr. Michael Gropper, the director of critical care medicine at UCSF Medical Center, the hospital I was visiting.

So Dr. Gropper made a new rule. Unless there was a written order from a doctor saying that a patient should be lying down, every patient on a ventilator had to be sitting up.

How much of an impact did this simple rule have?

[T]he incidence of ventilator-associated pneumonia has fallen more than 40 percent since 2005. There are people walking around Northern California this morning who otherwise would not be alive.

Many times people know the right thing to do, but continue to do the wrong thing since that is the status quo. Although changing behavior may seem like a lot of work, many times just inputting a small rule, a “nudge”, is enough, making the default action always or mostly right. The article mentions another example, buying smaller portions, as a way to counter act our extra-large culture and applies the “nudge rule” to various other problems.

A small decision can make a huge difference, in the case of the hospital it saved lives. Are there any areas of your life where you can add a nudge and get big results?

Source LifeHacker
Photo Ypsilanti
Definition Dictionary.com

Mahatma Ghandi once said, “you must be the change you want to see in the world.” I only took notice of this quote because the project director at my work always had it tagged to the end of her emails. Despite its direct simplicity, this sweet and uncomplicated phrase resonated with me; its significance heightened by corresponding to a prevalent theme in my personal relationship with Mr. W.

When I met W, I was at most a conflicted, confused and emotionally taut person. My fragile brink of tearful oblivion could be at any time tipped over and sent crashing. This hanging balance kept me from doing many things that I wanted to do, but most importantly that needed to be done. When overwrought with mental distress, we let things fester and accumulate from fear–fear of confrontation, and fear of unpredictability.

W is an inspiration. He encouraged me to regain control and take responsibility for the state of my existence. And from there, I learned to do things in order to make life happen, from sending in applications and filing taxes to aspects of grander proportions.

So with this inelaborate philosophy in hand, small changes are only the beginning of my conquest. There are many things wrong in this world, but I learned that dishes don’t wash themselves. Therefore when we don’t like something, the only thing we can do is to change it.

My first steps of change involve a ticket to Cambodia, a small digital camcorder, and a research design for truth, and the untold stories–the things that never get heard from the people drowned in contemporary social jabber. The further we get away from a forgotten era, the harder it will be to remember it. The longer we wait, the more people age and die off with these stories–stories that, I believe, would offer great insight into the fine line between life and death; hope and despair–stories that people would never hear otherwise–stories that come from the survivors themselves.

I am planning on entering a “First Citizen Journalism Contest” sponsored by an upcoming independent media source. Albeit I have no real journalist experience, I do have something that needs to be said, heard and contemplated. I want to offer explainations, and promote discussion and awareness. I want to show why things are the way they are, how it happened and why it is important to never forget.

I want to make a difference; I want to be the change that I want to see in the world.

Details/progress update pending.