Landon Julson
Period 4
Self-Reflection and Predictably Irrational

    In chapter nine the main focus was about our impulse to chase worthless options even if we know they do not fulfill our true joy or happiness.  It had to do with how we tend to not close the door on our alternative activities even if that is the best thing for us to do.  The story connected these two thoughts on the Chinese commander Xiang Yu and how his-self and his troops awoke to their ships burning.  He didn’t order them to tend to the ships, he had them fight onward closing the door on the thing that didn’t matter or could not be saved.  This explains why we buy things that are unneeded for everyday living. Example being a new car, the best cell phone, or even what sports we decide to drop/stay involved in.  We as human tend to forget to spend time on the things that might be more important. According to Predictably Irrational “It’s a fool’s game, and one that we are remarkably adept at playing.” which means that we all do this even without thought or reason, and by saying that we are remarkably adept at playing means that we are really good at it too.  This ties itself into the first chapter by saying that we don’t have an internal meter to tell us how much things are worth or how much time and effort we should put into irrelevant things.
    I connect to this chapter because I do spend time and money on things that should not be a main priority for me.  I like to have fun with my life and like to have new and well working things.  For example I love to snowmobile, therefore once the snow flies it is my main goal to get out and ride as much as I possibly can.  When it comes to snowmobiles there is a happy medium for how nice of a sled you have.  I decided to upgrade 10 years from my old one last year and it really wasn’t necessary for riding but it was something that I wanted.  My non-existing internal meter did not tell me what was a priority or not.  The lesson that I learned was that it really was worth it because I get to ride and have run on a newer and faster sled.  But the real lesson is that I didn’t really need the new one, because there was probably more important things for me to spend my money on and spend my time doing.
    The TV show I will compare to is Michael Waddel’s hunting show.  He is a man about 35 years old and he films whitetail hunts for a TV show.  This show is fun to watch and interests me because I share a common hobby.  Just like me, Michael has a brand new bow and brand new equipment.  What this tells the average audience is that to shoot the big ones or be successful you need to have the best of everything when we all know this isn’t true.  We know that we can go hunting with a 150 dollar bow and kill animals but what’s the fun in that when you can go with a 900 dollar nice bow.  See when we watch the professionals do something we tend to mimic them causing us to spend more money on things that are not needed.

Landon Julson
Period 4
10/16/12

Self-Reflection and Blink


    In the chapter Listening With Your Eyes they talked about how people tend to thin slice with little information before they actually receive all of the information or all of what they came to hear/get.  In the first chapter they talked about thin slicing and what it is and how it works.  Strangely enough we all do it on a daily basis without thinking about it.  In my chapter they talked about how there was an orchestra tryout and they wanted to have the player’s separated from the judges so the judges would only be able to judge on what was heard not seen.  This was in a time where you wouldn’t find a woman winning or getting 1st place in anything like this.  The best part was that when the performers were behind a curtain the judges picked a woman to play their lead role.  They were stunned when they saw her step out from behind it.  If they wouldn’t have had the curtain between them the woman wouldn’t have been chosen because the judges would’ve thin sliced and booted her out without hearing what she really had.
    I’ll be honest I connect to this chapter because I thin slice people all the time.  I’m not perfect but we all thin slice without knowing it.  An example I’ll share is sophomore year.  I was in an electricity class and the only other sophomore that I knew came in and sat next to me and was my partner.  At first I had first though judgmental thoughts of him and they lasted for a week or so.  Once I really got to know him it turned out that me and him were very much alike and we’ve been friends since that class.  He still is one of my best friends to this day.  I think this shows a point that when people thin slice they actually miss the reality or the things in people that they would never see unless they learned something about them.  If  I would’ve thin sliced I would be down someone who is a brother to me. The main lesson is don’t thin slice, and try not to be prejudice against others.
    The film I choose is Miracle because in this one small snippet it shows how thin slicing affected the players and they main point of the game.  Incase you don’t know what Miracle is it is a movie about the U.S.A. hockey team and how they go on to beat the Canadians in the biggest game of the Olympics.  Anyways, two of the characters were college rivals, whose names I cannot remember.  They had this grudge against one another and they decided that in practice they would fight it out in the middle of a play they were running.  The coach let them duke it out until he came over and yelled at them, showing them that they are no different from each other than they think they are.  They looked at each other in the eyes and noticed that they are the same person just with a different upcoming and college.  In the end they became good team mates and were on each others line.  This shows that thin slicing just because of a cross town rivalry can lead to a negative impact on a team or group of people.

Landon Julson

Period 4

9/27/12

 

This I Believe

 

            I believe that hard work will eventually pay off over time in anything that you work on.  It seems that the more effort I put into daily tasks and things that I want completed turn out better in the long run than they do if you just “half-ass” it.  I feel that when you’re younger, around the age of 14, it is helpful to have some type of job and learn that when you strive for excellence and put hard work into something, good things will come out of whatever you’re doing.  From past experiences I have learned that when you have a job it will suck going to work and since my work is more hard and dirtier than other work, it makes me want to give up on it and stop doing it. But in the back of my mind there is that mindset that I’m getting paid at the end of each week for the time I put in doing the things that I do.  What it has taught me is that even at the hardest times putting in more effort is the way to get what you want faster.  When I go to baseball practice or games and see people just go through the motions it makes me mad because most of us are there to get better and become a stronger team.  Sports are a thing that one day can work in your favor and other days against.  Sometimes people drop out of sports that they just tried because they were bad, when really they just didn’t put the time and effort into it that they should have or had the opportunity to.  Having bad days in sports only makes you better for the next game or time that you get to do something over.  I’m not going to lie, I struck out so many times in the last 4 years.  Just this last year I started focusing more on the basic mechanics and working for my goal of hitting good and having a decent average.  The work that I put in has paid off because I don’t strike out as much anymore and I put the ball in play and have a more comfortable approach to each at bat.  So for anyone who is struggling to get by or feel like they can’t do something, just try.  And don’t try with a “half-assed” attitude I mean try hard and work your best and put all that you have into everything that you do.