In the 'Amazing Race' and in life, choose the fun detour option: Jan Risher

In the television show "Amazing Race," contestants compete in teams of two to race around the world, making pitstops at a variety of locales with the last team to arrive usually being eliminated. 

I was a faithful watcher of the show for years as it was the perfect intersection of my wanderlust and love of games. Years ago, I even sent in an audition tape with my youngest brother. Sadly, we never got the call. 

Each season, the random cast of characters travels to a variety of foreign cities where they must compete tasks, one being deciding between two so-called "Detours," that involve different skills or challenges. The decision on which task to do lies solely with the team.

The Detours usually have creative, catchy names. Examples include:

• Sleds or beds in Sweden: Sleds required athleticism as they had to race down a mountain on TechSleds in less than one minute and 58 seconds. Beds was all about craftsmanship, dexterity and attention to detail. Teams had to build a traditional Sami dwelling, called a goahti, along with furnishing it with furs and a fire pit. 

• Mix Master or Master Mix in Malaysia: Contestants could either choose to be a DJ and learn to scratch on a DJ table to impress a DJ and his crowd or stack seven cocktail glasses into a two-tier pyramid and carefully pour out different colored cocktails into every glass at the same time to avoid mixing the contents in the SkyBar on the 32nd floor of the Traders Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

• Shake Your Booty or Shake Your Pan in Burkina Faso. Contestants could choose Shake Your Booty to impress three local judges with their dance moves. Or, they could pan for gold using the traditional methods of Burkina Faso.

When I used to watch the show regularly, when the teams would stand quietly deciding which of the tasks to tackle, I would often shout instructions at the television. My message was always clear. 

"Choose the fun one!" I would first yell.

Followed by, "Choose the one that calls out to you!"

Then I would shake my head and mumble something along the lines of, "Don't be lured thinking that because the other task seems harder that there's some righteousness to it that is going to earn you extra points."

When it came time to do this or that to get to the next place, there were never any points for doing the more difficult thing. After watching the show for years, I was convinced that there was no favor in picking the difficult or tedious task, which players seemed to occasionally choose because they were convinced there had to be a catch. 

I couldn't help but think of "The Amazing Race" last week as I read contemporary philosopher Laurie Ann Paul's report, "When New Experience Leads to New Knowledge: A Computational Framework for Formalizing Epistemically Transformative Experiences." It may not be a title that rolls off the tongue for non-academics like myself, but the subject matter fascinates me still. (Paul wrote the report with Joan Ongchoco, Isaac Davis and Julian Jara-Ettinger.) 

In the simplest of terms, the report is about new experiences leading to new knowledge. It immediately made me think of "The Amazing Race." She has written a lot about transformative experiences, something that "teaches you something new, something that you could not have known before having the experience, while also changing you as a person."

Unlike the "Amazing Race Detour"-style options, she has focused on situations when life offers two distinct choices, where one of the options offers a radically new experience with implications that can't be understood in advance. Such as:

• Deciding to become a parent or remaining childless?
• Taking the new job and relocating my family or stay with the tried and true?
• Marrying this person or exploring another possibility?
• Changing careers? Going into this field or that one?
• Going to college here or going there?

The question for us mere mortals is: How do we approach the crossroads that major-life decisions offer?

Our information is incomplete. We can't answer all the what-ifs? We don't know what choosing one path over the other will bring — or how we will change as we face the consequences. 

Sometimes, even pragmatic pros and cons lists can't provide an absolute obvious best choice. Rather than wearing ourselves out debating the unknowable consequences, Paul explores reframing our thinking — not approaching the choice itself with set expectations but approaching the new experience to make discoveries about the experience itself, instead of being focused on one of the possibilities being the better choice.

As in, via my meager interpretation, don't stress so much about which path to pick. Just pick a good path and make the most of it. 

And if you're still struggling as to which path to pick — do the one that seems like it would be the most fun or would sync the best with who you know yourself to be.