Abraham H. MaslowI suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
About This Quote
The most powerful tool in the world is a hammer. The limitation that a hammer imposes on us is that we see everything in the world as a nail. It is very tempting to look at entire systems and many other people in the world with this same limited view. Every problem, every conflict, every conflict resolution, every relationship can be seen as a nail.
In this limited way, we can think of the world as being full of nails and have all sorts of tools for dealing with them. In fact, when you have a limited toolset, you tend to think that all problems are solved in the same way. You end up asking yourself whether you should use a hammer or a screwdriver or whatever it is that happens to be at hand. Then you end up beating your head against one another because people use different tools for different problems and different people will prefer different tools for solving different problems. The problem is not in having a toolbox with several hammers and screwdrivers in it.
The problem is in having only one hammer when you really need two or three hammers. The problem is in seeing only one nail when there are many nails around you. The solution to these problems is not to try to find better tools for all situations; rather it's to recognize that there are many nails around you and to use more than one hammer if you want to get the job done right.
Source: Toward A Psychology Of Being
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