A few weeks ago, I asked everyone in my seminar how they tied their shoes, after being ridiculed by a few of my friends for tying mine using an overhand knot between two loops earlier that block. While most of them said they did it the socially accepted “right” way of using one loop and wrapping the other lace around, a few said they tied theirs like me. Asking people about tying their shoes made me wonder — why does society support one way of tying shoes over another? Or, if multiple methods of doing something lead to the same result, why should one be forced upon people?

If someone doesn’t understand how to do something using one method, they may understand another, and would benefit from learning multiple methods. Case in point: the only reason I tie my shoes with two loops is because I still, to this day, cannot tie them with one. But, if one method is widely favored over another, the person may feel singled out for using the less-favored method — like I did while tying my shoes.

My seventh-grade brother recently had a similar experience. He was learning about working with negative numbers in math, and was having a hard time with adding and subtracting them. He told me his teacher taught his class to keep, flip and change the signs when adding and subtracting integers, and he didn’t understand it. I explained a different way to him, and he understood right away. Afterward, he asked, “Why didn’t my teacher teach us this way?” All I told him was that she should have.

Math isn’t the only instance when one method of doing something is favored over another, though. In my Physics class last year, I found ways to solve certain problems that seemed easier than the way I had learned, and it made me question why the teacher didn’t teach the class both ways, as opposed to just one. Even as the editor-in-chief of Mill Valley News, I found another extremely easier way to create a photo gallery online, and had no idea why our hosting service had pushed the harder way of creating galleries instead.

As long as someone gets the same results, it shouldn’t matter how he or she got them. As such, there shouldn’t be a societally favored method of doing something that ostracizes other methods. After all, the ends still justify the means — shouldn’t that be what matters?