Being rational

Wednesday, June 6, 2012 Permalink

I recently left a comment for another blogger and my own response got me thinking. The post in question was about the fact that the writer’s healthy eating habits had gone awry for a few months. They were … taking a breath and regrouping to move forward, and in doing so were attempting to learn from the past few months. She asked we readers what we would tell ourselves in the same situation.

“Move on,” I said. I told her that I believed there were actual theories that supported my sage advice.

I suspect I’ve mentioned that I was never much of a student. In fact, I think I was doing my Masters before I finally realised that one didn’t have to ‘learn’ everything verbatim, but rather ‘understand’ concepts. At school I was better in English, Maths and the like – stuff I didn’t need to ‘study’ for. Stuff I didn’t need to learn. If I understood how to do something (be it equations, algebra etc) then I could do it until the cows came home.

A subject I enjoyed as an undergraduate psychology student was about rational decision-making. It involved minimal theory (so my cup of tea) and was basically about weighting factors which would assist one in weighing alternatives and making a decision (and so forth).

One thing that’s stayed with me – and in fact is not rocket science (though did feature in rational decision-making logic) – was the notion of ‘sunk costs’. Basically we learned that it is NOT rational to consider past actions / behaviour when making future decisions. For example… do you spend money fixing a dud car, just because you’ve already channelled heaps of money into it? No. You look at what it’s going to cost you in future and make decisions SOLELY based on that fact.

It is IRRATIONAL, we learnt, to focus on past decisions or actions. They’re done and dusted and cannot be changed.

I’m sure the theory was a tad more complex and we were meant to learn from past behaviour / results and use them to predict the future, but… you get my drift.

It occurs to me that I harp on about the past. All. Of. The. Time. I need to take a leaf out of my own book and heed the advice I’m giving others!

I’ve written before about my years of anorexia and bulimia. Frankly they’re a lifetime ago. I’ve now been overweight for longer than I was of a normal weight or underweight. I need to stop clinging onto past behaviours: whether they be what I perceive as missed opportunities or thwarted potential; an inability to maintain lost weight; or failure to lose weight.

Instead, I need to focus on looking forward. I mean, I suspect it’s impossible NOT to learn from the past. I lived it, it’s part of who I am… I kinda know where I went right and where I went wrong. So now I suspect I need to focus more on my future and how I want to live the rest of my life!

There endeth the lesson!

 

 

20 Comments
  • Karen@WaistingTime
    June 6, 2012

    I learned about sunk costs in accounting class in college and think of them often in life. With the weight thing, it is so easy for me to get caught in the “if I’d started last week instead of eating all that food…”

    • Debbish
      June 6, 2012

      So true Karen… The ‘if onlys’ are somewhat dangerous!

  • KCLAnderson (Karen)
    June 6, 2012

    Speaking of taking one’s own advice, I recently left a comment on someone else’s blog that said this: “I have stopped looking at this journey as being about steps forward or steps backward…they’re ALL forward. We CAN’T go back. It may feel like we’ve regressed, but each and every time we revisit old patterns or behaviors, we’re doing so with new eyes…it’s ALL forward, baby!”

    That said, I believe a healthy understanding of the past can help us keep moving forward 🙂

    • Debbish
      June 6, 2012

      Agreed… I can’t recall anything from the course about ‘learning from the past’ but suspect there was something there! I guess each thing we do though does move us forward – even if it’s not in the direction we’d like!!!

  • Rebecca
    June 6, 2012

    I love love love this 🙂 Great lesson x

    • Debbish
      June 6, 2012

      Thanks Rebecca. I just need to remember it now!

      Deb

  • Satu
    June 7, 2012

    I LOVE this post. Period! 🙂

    • Debbish
      June 7, 2012

      Thanks Satu! There’s a lesson there. I always say ‘move on’ / ‘don’t focus on the past’ and yet I’m not always successful in doing that!

      Deb

  • Kerryn Woods (@kerrynwoods)
    June 7, 2012

    One of my favourite quotes is (I’m paraphrasing here, don’t have it handy):

    You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one.

    It can be a good thing to reflect on the past and learn from it, but when we get stuck repeating the same old patterns, we need to figure out what’s keeping from moving on. It isn’t always easy…

    • Debbish
      June 7, 2012

      I actually almost used the ‘re-reading’ quote in one of the photos. It’s so true.

      Deb

  • Miz
    June 7, 2012

    oh goodness I love that quote.
    I was raised by an amazing woman who let EVERY SINGLE YESTERDAY overtake her todays.
    she still does and, to me, it’s heartbreaking.

    • Debbish
      June 7, 2012

      It’s hard to change habits like that isn’t it….? But, you’ve broken out of that cycle and Tornado will have you as a role model!

      Deb

  • Marion
    June 8, 2012

    Hi Deb! This is a very interesting post. “Sunk costs” is not a term I had heard before. I’ll have to think about that for a while. Although I try not to, I think too much about my past. I’m made some effective personal rules to lesson it, which as helped quite a bit. But still too much.

    🙂 Marion

    • Debbish
      June 8, 2012

      Yes Marion, I can relate. As I said, I think there’s benefit in learning from our past, but moving on…

  • Sandra
    June 8, 2012

    Great post. Thanks for the advice. Will try. xo

    • Debbish
      June 8, 2012

      Yes… Me too!

  • Lou Lou
    June 10, 2012

    I loved that quote, it is applicable to so many things in life. I’m going to take it with me into next week…

    • Debbish
      June 11, 2012

      Yes Lou Lou – in the subject it was about making monetary / investment decisions… but it’s far more widely applicable!

  • Sacha
    June 10, 2012

    Love the image quote! This hits so close to home for me. I often spend time outside the present, which sometimes works counter to my efforts.

    • Debbish
      June 11, 2012

      So true Sacha… it’s a big problem for me as well. (Obviously!)

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