The Weekly Theory 7.31.2011

File under Useless Information

I need to kick off this week with a Weekly Theory based on an interesting observation this past weekend while watching a fun band.

I Have a Theory...

...that 78% of the time the first people on the dance floor should probably wait until there are more people out there.

just sayin'.

Source

If you're in the Philly area, check out Hot D.  They're a good time.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/HotDRocks

Song of the Day

In honor of fun cover bands, the song of the day is The Starting Line's cover of J. Lo's "I'm real".  By the way, Hot D, you should add this to the play list.

The Quotable Antidote 7.27.2011

File under Useless Information

"My teacher told me that practice makes perfect.  My mother told me that nobody's perfect. So I stopped practicing." - Comedian Steven Wright

Source

It's funny, but how do you really know when to cut your losses?  How can you tell when your efforts will never achieve your endstate?  It has to do with our 'loss' aversion and i'll get into that later.


Song of the Day
In honor of not practing the trumpet enough in 6th grade, i'll let the master play it.  The song of the day is Miles Davis' "So What".

The Cartoon

File under Get a smaller plate

I'm a big fan or author/cartoonist/blogger Hugh MacLeod and this cartoon of his struck a chord as it relates to the Antidote.  He provides commentary included below:

We like to kid ourselves that a grey, listless life of mediocrity is fine and dandy, so long as we're being paid well enough.

Of course, that's mistaken. And of course, we don't fully understand THE TRUE HORROR of believing that mistake till it's far too late; till most of our life (that could have striven for something better) is already used up.

I interpret his message not that we settle for mediocrity but that we wallow in mediocrity with the illusion we will ever achieve some intangible greatness.  Instead, how can we find ways to identify successes we are capable of achieving, not how someone tells us we should be great.
 
Check out Hugh's site at http://www.gapingvoid.com/
 
Song of the Day
In honor of the dog days of summer and one of my wife's favorite songs, the song of the day is The Cars' "Magic".

The Sleeper Agent Baboon

File under Meet Yourself

“You interview really, really well for your pre-school, and as a result you get into a good school and a good high school and you study hard and you get a good GPA and you get into a good Grad School then you get a good job and eventually you get into the nursing home of your choice.” – Primatologist Robert Sapolsky

Has it been hot the past couple of days or is it just me?

OK, in all seriousness, it has been ridiculously hot. To quote the movie Biloxi Blues, “It’s hot. It’s like Africa hot.” I’m looking forward to Tuesday in the mid-Atlantic when the temp will plummet to 90 degrees.

But speaking of Africa (like that segue?), I recently read a report in Science magazine on the hierarchy of African Baboons that directly relates to the Antidote.

Source

A report published this week by Lawrence Gesquiere of Princeton University, and others, details the stress levels among natural populations of savannah baboons. Not surprisingly, the Alpha baboons enjoy the highest level of testosterone, and the lowest baboons have high levels of stress, exhibited by glucocorticoid levels (in case you cared), but what is surprising is that the Alpha baboons had higher levels of stress than the beta, or second-ranking baboons. Apparently maintaining their position in the hierarchy and the activities associated with that create stress. Equally as stress-inducing is the struggle for limited resources that the lower level baboons deal with. However, the beta male baboons enjoy a sweet spot of lower-stress and ample resources. Gesquiere notes that “being at the top may be more costly than previously thought.”

Noted Primatologist/Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University noted that the results “should not be construed as supporting the supposed existence of the ‘executive stress syndrome’”, but that the results are definitely interesting. In any case, the implications of the stress of being the best are directly relevant to human activities.

What are the stresses of being the best that you see?

On a side note, below is a talk by Robert Sapolsky on the uniqueness of humans. I first only wanted to show this because he is Zach Galafiankis and Weird Al Yankovic rolled into one; but this talk is actually really interesting. It’s long, but really well done.

http://www.ted.com/talks/robert_sapolsky_the_uniqueness_of_humans.html


Song of the Day
In honor of baboons, and a song having nothing to do with baboons, the song of the day is Sleeper Agent’s “Get it Daddy”.

The Correction

File under Making things right

I was recently admonished for, in my last post, making a reference to the Karate Kid, yet failing to make the song of the day 'You're the Best' from the karate tournament at the end of the movie. I will rectify that here, but first...

The Daily Antidote
Don't be fooled.  In the real world, every time, the Cobra Kai dojo beats the skinny kid from New Jersey.
Every time.

Song of the Day
In honor of admitting when you're wrong, the song of the day is Joe Esposito's "You're the Best'.

The Restlessness

File under Avoid the Machine

I wanted to go back to a few posts ago when I talked about purchasing, and subsequently giving up on, the Mega-Memory system.

Source

Why would I give up so easily? Mr. Trudeau tapped into a hidden insecurity of mine that I was motivated to overcome, or at least so I thought. I “had” to have it, remember. “Why would I abandon it?” was the nagging question. There were two reasons that I slowly realized:


1. The effort to achieve my desired endstate was boring
2. I didn’t really care about the endstate after all

These reasons are actually part and parcel of each other. The second reason is the cause and the first the effect, but I’ll talk about both because the effect is what is most tangible to us.

Somewhere into the first tape the system lost its allure. It wasn’t magical anymore, it really just turned out to be common sense. Using memory association to remember things was not created by Trudeau, nor was it rocket science. And with that realization came the feeling that these exercises were silly and that I could have done this on my own. Strike 1. But I persisted. I continued on to the exercise of remembering things spatially and memorized the layout of furniture in the apartment as directed. It was during this task that I began to question how this would help me in solving the understanding of my issue. There was a disconnect. I was forgetful, but at no time had I ever forgotten where my couch was. I was now perceiving these activities as rote exercises that had no bearing on my endstate. I was having a Karate Kid moment where Daniel-san was painting some old dude’s fence and waxing his car with no concept of how that would help him beat up Johnny. I began to feel these exercises were a waste of my time and I didn’t have Miyagi to push me through. Strike 2. And then in Tape 3, carrying that baggage, I gave up. I realized that I was forgetful, but obviously I wasn’t that bad because I just graduated college and I had a job. I was comfortable with where I was and I just didn’t really care about the program anymore. The work to achieve it was not worth the effort for an endstate I was only marginally interested in in the first place.

Truly, deep down in our core, being content with our state, and thus being unwilling to change, is a major reason why we fail when sometimes we convince ourselves we are so determined to succeed. But it’s not the only reason, and there are two other reasons why we may have failed that we'll get into next.

Daily Antidote
Ask yourself: "What happens if you don't achieve your desired endstate?"
 
Song of the Day
I think we succumb to these self-help 'fixes' because of a restlesness we feel in our lives.  In honor of overcoming that feeling, the song of the day is Langhorne Slim's 'Restless'.
 

The Birthday

File Under Get a Smaller Plate

Tuesday of this week was my older sister's birthday.  I called her that night to wish her a happy birthday and she relayed a story to me that I will call the "Facebook Birthday Paradigm", which turns out to be an example of a re-definition of success.

Being an avid social networker, she was linked in early on her birthday and started seeing her Facebook 'friends' post birthday wishes.  And it continued throughout the day.  Birthday message after birthday message popped up on her phone Facebook app.  Remarkably (or not so remarkably) they weren't all from her closest family and friends.  She later wrote about it on her profile:

"You know, as much as I mock Facebook and my "addiction" to it, I have to say it is a wonderful thing....where else can you receive birthday wishes from your sister, your next door neighbor, your 4th grade boyfriend, people you drank Rolling Rocks with at your first job out of College, someone you worked a jukebox with during lunch in middle school, your sister-in-law's best friend, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, close friends, far friends, high school friends, brothers of old boyfriends, teachers, and casual aquaintances? Pretty awesome. Pretty surreal. And basically, pretty cool. Thank you ALL for the birthday wishes yesterday! You made me smile, you made me remember, you made me laugh."

Nice thoughts, but nothing spectacular here.  We all get those wishes and we have all given our wishes.  I mean it only takes 5 seconds to write Happy Birthday, right? 

Well, i would argue, and I think she would argue, that there is something spectacular here.  It may only take 5 seconds to write happy birthday, but it takes zero seconds to ignore the birthday notification.  It takes no time to go about our lives ignoring people.  But that didn't happen here.  People went out of their way.  They left unsolicited notes to let her know they were thinking of her.  Even if that was the first time they had in a year, 5 years, or 10 years.  Why?  Why do we do it? 

We do it because they mean something to us.  Even if it was because of a moment in time. A smile.  A shared memory.  She influenced their lives in some capacity and each of those people wanted to say thanks in a way. 

What is a better definition of success?  ignoring friends to work longer or to get a 4.0, or focusing on othes such that decades later they go out of their way to let you know you had an impact on their lives.

As weird and 'surreal' as it may be, the Facebook Birthday Paradigm is a true measure of success - your successful impact on other people's lives.

In honor of my sister's birthday and her musical infuence on me growing up, the song of the day is Sinead O'Connor's 'Troy'.  Happy Birthday KBWM!!

The Weekly Theory 7.1.2011

File under Useless Information

As we are all about to embark on a patriotic weekend filled with cookouts, family, sun, water, and fireworks...and most importantly the second to last McSweeny cousins' wedding...

I Have a Theory...

...that fireworks displays should consist of the Finale...and that's it.

Really.  Don't we all just sit there watching and saying, "I think this is the finale...oh, maybe not... I think this is the finale..no?...when is the finale coming?" 



Isn't this what we came for?!


Song of the Day
In honor of the 235 birthday of the USA, the song of the day is John Phillip Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.