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.