by Stephen Mills on February 6, 2013
That dream job, promotion, mate, house, car, or dreaded breakup, surprise job loss, devastating diagnosis may not matter as much as you think. Most of us dream about or alternatively worry about how big events in our lives are going to make us happy or bring us down. A lot of research though actually indicates that it isn’t those big events that really matter as much as we might credit them.
The fact is that we usually bounce back from adversity and come down from our temporary highs relatively quickly and return to our baseline level of happiness in a process known as hedonic adaptation. These big life events are quickly overwhelmed by the more mundane daily ups and downs.
It’s counter intuitive that the jammed up traffic, slow people in front of you in line, a rude clerk, overheard catty comment, argument with your teenager, etc. bring you down more than the big events, but counter intuitive or not, that’s what research shows. These smaller and daily constant hits on your mood accumulate to overwhelm the big stuff. The same thing applies to the positive events but it is worth pointing out that negative stuff matters more than positive stuff. That’s why you need many more positive events than negative ones to thrive.
The takeaway is not to sacrifice your daily happiness for that big dream. It will quickly be the norm and you will then be looking for then next big thing to satisfy your “I will be happy when …” fantasy. You can deal with the small stuff by adjusting your response to them. Maybe somebody should write a book called “Don’t Sweat the Big Stuff”.
Actually someone did write the book but the author Sonja Lyubomirsky called it The Myths of Happiness: What Should Make You Happy, but Doesn’t, What Shouldn’t Make You Happy, but Does
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by Stephen Mills on January 13, 2013
Several years ago I wrote an article explaining The Sunk Cost Bias Mind Trap. Since we are starting a fresh new year I thought it would be appropriate to remind everyone to avoid this costly trap. I recommend you follow my link and read the original article because it is a better article, but I will summarize it here.
This is one of the hardest traps for me personally to avoid and I think for most others as well. For example I love to read books and watch movies. For many years if I started a book, I finished it even if I didn’t like it. The same thing if I plunked down cash to go to a movie. I never walked out of one. After all my investment would be “wasted” if I didn’t finish right? Wrong. In fact it couldn’t be more wrong.
The central point is the past is the past and any investment that occurred in the past is already sunk, therefore the term “sunk costs”. If you continue something because you have already invested time or money or some other resource in it, you are simply compounding your original mistake. If I paid for a book and have read ½ of it and don’t like it, why should I continue to invest my valuable time doing something just because I have already sunk costs into that activity? Those are gone. I can’t get them back. Then only important thing is what do I want to do now? Where can I most enjoyable or profitably invest my time NOW.
I think my epiphany was Jim Carrey’s movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. Since I liked some of Jim Carrey’s movies (something I don’t really understand), I went to this movie. I hated it so badly I could hardly stand it. After about 20 minutes I left the theatre because I realized that continuing to punish myself for my original mistake was irrational. It was the first time I had done that and at the time I was going to multiple movies a week. While it was obvious with such a bad movie, I realized the same thing applies to virtually anything. If there is something better to be doing, it doesn’t matter what I’ve done up to this point or what money or time I’ve invested. It’s all sunk costs. It’s gone. It’s what I do from this point forward that’s important.
So as you look forward in 2013 and beyond I encourage you to drop all of your attachments to your sunk costs from the past. Those costs may have been sunk into relatively trivial things like books and movies or much more important things like relationships, jobs, etc. However, the trap applies to the latter as well. In fact the more important the issue, the bigger mistake it is to chase sunk costs. It doesn’t matter how trivial or important the something you have invested in is in your life, the costs are still sunk. Don’t compound your original mistake.
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by Stephen Mills on December 24, 2012
This is a short article on probably the best book on health and diet I’ve ever read and I’ve read a lot of them. I read it some time ago and a new edition has just been released. It has “diet” in the name but that term is used in the sense of what you eat as opposed to how to lose weight. This is NOT a weight loss book although there is a chapter on that and it is part of the subtitle.
We worry about the most unlikely things most of which are totally out of our control and yet most of us don’t do the one thing that we have almost total control over – eat healthy. Even most of us who think we are eating healthy are not. Therefore I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It far surpasses most diet books and it carefully explains the most important issues regarding what you should eat and more importantly why. It is heavily footnoted and is supported by a mass of scientific literature which is explained in terms everyone can understand.
This book is not your typical paleo book although the diet looks fairly paleo. The authors explain some critically important facts about toxicity of carbs and proteins. Its chapters on the toxicity of grains, vegetable oils, and fructose are simply outstanding. The material on supplements and why you should take certain ones is very carefully documented with much care given to safe levels. Every single person should read this book.
Please note the average Amazon review is 4.7 out of 5 stars. Those are well deserved and I would give it 10 stars if I could. The paperback version I first read is not available although you may find it in the library. The new hardcover edition is $17.27 cents on Amazon. The kindle version is $12.59. It is 400 pages long. If you and your spouse went to lunch you couldn’t get out of the restaurant for $17.27. If you take your family to a movie it will probably cost you $30 – $60. This $17.27 will be the best and most inexpensive investment in your future that I can imagine. Read it.
Perfect Health Diet: Regain Health and Lose Weight by Eating the Way You Were Meant to Eat
Happy holidays!
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by Stephen Mills on December 10, 2012
This article is not a 20 second read and that is the point. You can’t explain something complex without spending some time on it. A couple of weeks ago I was moving around in the house in the morning with the TV tuned to the Today show. I heard them introduce a story with something along the lines of “We are used to seeing the stories of elderly drivers putting the car in drive instead of reverse or stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake and driving through a store front. But are elderly drivers really unsafe drivers?”. I probably have that wrong, but that captures the gist of it. Basically the story went on to promote how safe elderly drivers are by quoting some statistics saying drivers over 65 cause fewer crashes than other age groups. The shocker was that they brought in a 97 year-old man as the poster boy for safe elderly drivers!
I’m positive that 97 year-old drivers are not safe drivers as a group. It’s simply a matter of physiology Brain processing speed, ability to deal with complex situations, flexibility, vision, quickness in movement, and many other things that significantly degrade in old age make dealing with rapidly changing traffic situations much more difficult.
The report had someone on who quoted some stats like that mentioned above and then claimed that since older drivers drive slower and are more careful they are actually safer drivers. It ended with some feel good impressions that the elderly drivers are not unsafe after all. [click to continue…]
