CHOICE INDUCED INERTIA

WEEK EIGHT: RETIREMENT

26/10/2009

The builders finished the renovation of the bathrooms last week. We now have new shining bathrooms. They look great and the showers are very pleasant. These are so called rain simulating showers. There is not much force but a large surface area of the shower-head delivers quite a lot of water. I was very sceptical initially and was more inclined to have same type of traditional shower which I had before. I was happy with them so why change to a different type? This dilemma was not only with the showers but also with sink, taps, tiles, lighting, mirrors, radiators: in short with everything. There are vast arrays of choices: shape, size, material, colour, price and the technical details like flow, pressure and eco-sensitivity. So much choice makes it more difficult to choose. Availability of more options should make life easier but in reality they make it extremely difficult. This was one of the reasons why I would have chosen the same type of things which I had before. This is what I call choice induced inertia. Or is it something more inherent. When choosing something new there is on average fifty percent chance that it may be better or worse. But generally the mind focuses more on the loss than the gains. You remember traffic lights being red more often than being green. This risk aversion, some psychologists think is hard wired in our psyche. In built preference of status quo is another strong argument to explain different choices we make in life.

It is almost like Newton's first law of motion "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." We do not wish to change unless there is a benefit strong enough to overcome our constitutional inertia. And nowadays there is so much choice that it is difficult to see any clear benefit in one over the other and in absence of any perceived clear benefit brain chooses status quo. This by the way also explains why we are paying so much money for our broadband or the mobile, or the gas or .......

SELF-SERVING BIAS

18/10/09

WEEK EIGHT: RETIREMENT

Yesterday was Diwali, a Hindu festival celebrated with lights. As with all Hindu festivals there are a number of legends are related to Diwali commonest being the homecoming of Lord Rama after victory over the demon Rawana. It is celebrated on the darkest day of lunar month Amawasya.

We had a lot of fun with fireworks and the feast that followed with traditional vegetarian cuisine. I had too many sweets, felt a bit guilty but only till the next dish came along. I told my self that I would not take any sugar in my tea and coffee for this month. This should restore the balance. I take one spoonful of sugar with my drinks and on average I take 5.5 cups a day. I looked at the internet (where else!) to find the weight of a teaspoonful of sugar. It is 4.2 gms. So I will be offsetting 4.2*5.5*30 = 693 gms of sugar. This is a lot of sugar. This will allow me another piece of Ladoo.

How easily we believe in something which seems to be supporting our behaviour and condoning our excesses. I think it is called self serving bias. In reality eating a bit of less sugar over a period of time does not compensate for binge candy eating. This self-serving bias is very common. I am sure everyone has come across people who take all the credit when things go well but blame someone else they do not.

Anyway I am sticking to this plan and not going to take sugar for the next 30 days. Now I am going to have some leftover sweets. I only promised for sugarless hot drinks!

See you soon.

A PARENT'S DEATH

13/10/09    ( WEEK SEVEN: RETIREMENT)

To day is my father’s death anniversary. He passed away 3years ago after a short illness. I was with him in India when it happened. Even though we all knew it was inevitable, the grief and sadness were immense.

Before this experience I always felt that death of a near one will make one so distort that one would not be able to function efficiently in a worldly sense at least in the first few weeks. Naively I used to think that people who behaved so capably during the funerals were not really close to the deceased. Actually the rituals and funeral arrangements dampened the shock and brought us out of the paralytic stupor. It also brought our extended family closer.

When father was alive I never thought about my own death. My life seemed somehow protected and insured by my father’s longevity. Does every eldest sibling feel like this, I wonder.

It is good that the requirements of living are so much that one dose not have much time to ponder on death, particularly one’s own. I am immortal till I die!

Being over 60 has its benefits too, such as free insulation of the house. While I am writing this the walls are being drilled for cavity wall insulation. It is worse that being in a dentist’s chair. I have to get out of the study.

See you soon.

DECISION MAKING: INTUTIVE V/S ANALYTIC

     6/10/2009 (WEEK SIX: RETIREMENT)
We have been busy for the last two weeks with the builders who were doing some renovation work to our house. They started work at about 8 am and carried on till 4 or 5 pm with about an hour’s lunch break in the middle. First few days were really tiresome but then we got into a routine, getting up and ready by 7:30 in the morning and handing over the house to them at 8.
I mostly sat in my study while Bibha supervised the work. If the builders wanted a decision on something or other she would tell them she is going to ask me. She would come in the study and tell me the problem and we will discuss the various solutions till I agreed with what she had already decided. I would only insist on things when I had enough information to make a decision but what do I know about tiles, mirrors and toilets?

My wife is very good in making intuitive decisions when there is not enough information or the information is equivocal. I am not good at making intuitive decisions. I need to collect as much information as possible and consider the pros and cons based on that data. This is the way I took decisions as a surgeon. It does seems like a good way of doing things but in practice it is only helpful in a very few situations. Nowadays so many different materials and styles are on offer that to make an informed choice is not possible unless you plan to specialise in that field and devote a life time acquiring the necessary information.

Our great grand ancestors used intuitive decision making as they had little information about their environment. It is paradoxical that that in this new information age we have to increasingly rely again on Intuitive decision making precisely because so much data is available.

Now my intuition tells me that a cup of coffee will be good for me.

Bye.