You’ve heard the saying before; likely more times than you can recount. Logically, it’s a statement that can’t be disputed – one can only do anything for the first time once, just like you can only do something for the 7th time once. I can only go sledding for the first time once. Likewise, I can’t try sushi for the first time twice. Obviously the weight of the statement lies in the importance of first impressions. Read more
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I’m Starting to abuse the alliterate titles, I apologize. I’m no better than the writers of Suddently Susan. After all, I’m merely human.
Which leads me to the point of this post. In the abundance of off-time that I’ve had since graduating in December, a couple of books that I’ve delved into have shared a common theme – human error. Not error in the sense that people are stupid – although there are undeniably stupid people – but rather how our species routinely makes systematically poor decisions. Pick up any behavioral/social economics book and you’ll find a similar theme, however since Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein (wow this sounds like a book report) are most fresh in my mind, I will be referencing their main arguments. Read more
I know many of you wait for the last digit of the date-odometer to flip before you start to evaluate the status of your life and make any necessary adjustments. Not only is this a completely arbitrary way to fix any problems that may linger in our lives, but they often don’t last much longer than a Brady Bunch marathon. Why do they fail? Many attribute it to the difficulty for humans to break their normal everyday pattern. Maybe that’s true, but if we were able to develop more exciting resolutions, then we’d have something to charge us out of bed in the morning. I now present to you three inspiring New Year’s resolutions for 2009: