Here is a true story. 

Ever since classes went online, my daughter has been playing for 9 hours every day! 9 hours! She reads books for about an hour and finishes her online classes in another 1 hour. As a result she is free to play all day. From the moment she wakes up, all her attention is geared towards finishing these two activities, get ready and go to play. My son on the other hand, usually plays with his friends for 3 hours only. 

We have a rule at home. Everyone needs to eat dinner together and so the kids have to be home by 8 PM. Last Friday, I was in a lenient mood and so I told my daughter to come home by 815 PM. Soon after, I met my son playing with his friends and I told him to come home by 830 PM. 

Note: my kids are anchored to the 8PM deadline. And therefore when I told them they could come later, individually they were thrilled as they got an unexpected extra play time. 

So, as instructed, my daughter came home at 815 PM and my son at 830 PM. My daughter was initially thrilled that she got 15 extra minutes but that thrill soon vanished when she found that her brother got 30 extra minutes. So her anchor changed from 15 extra minutes to 15 less minutes and likewise her demeanor changed from thrilled to depressed, all in a matter of minutes. 

She could have anchored to the fact that unlike any of her friends or her brother she gets to play for 9 hours everyday. Or to the fact that she got 15 extra minutes. But instead she focused on what she didn’t have: 15 minutes less than her brother. 

As a neutral observer I was fascinated to see a live case study. It’s one thing to read about human folly and another to see it in front of your own eyes. I was determined to not let my daughter’s tears go waste. So here are my takeaways:

Takeaway #1: We humans use anchors to help interpret situations

Our interpretation of whether a situation is good or bad depends not on the situation per se, but instead on what we compare it to. Sometimes we anchor to price, sometimes to last year’s performance vis-a-vis this year’s etc. On Amazon, you see the old price and the new price because the new price by itself does not make much sense without the old price. Should you feel happy with a B+? That would depend on if you were expecting a B or an A. 

They say, an Olympic Bronze medalist is happier than a Silver medalist because the former is comparing himself to the 4th place contestant who didn’t win a medal whereas the latter is comparing himself to the guy who won the Olympic gold. As a neutral observer, you and I may find this funny but put us in a similar spot and we would make poor interpretations as well.

In the book ‘Paradox of choice’, the author Dr. Barry Schwartz says:

A few years ago, a study was conducted in which participants were presented with pairs of hypothetical personal circumstances and asked to state their preferences. For example, people were asked to choose between earning $50,000 a year with others earning $25,000 and earning $100,000 a year with others earning $200,000. In most cases, more than half of the respondents chose the options that gave them better relative position. Better to be a big fish, earning $50,000, in a small pond than a small fish, earning $100,000, in a big one.

Imagine: people chose to do better on a relative scale rather than do better on an absolute scale! I quoted this survey to my son, who was absolutely delighted at his sister’s misery, and asked him what would he choose? He boasted that he would never make such a silly mistake. Yet, two months ago he was anchored to the fact he was the only unlucky boy among all his friends who didn’t have a gaming PC instead of being grateful for so many other things like having a wonderful family or having other toys to play with or having lots of friends in the neighborhood. (There was a time in his life when he didn’t have friends in the neighborhood and he was miserable.)

Takeaway #2: Over time, old anchors give way to new anchors as we adapt our expectations to match the current reality. 

A year ago or a year later, playing for 9 hours everyday may have seemed like a luxury; but for now it is taken for granted. This reminded me of what William Irvine wrote in the book ‘A guide to the good life’:

We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires…Winning a lottery typically allows someone to live the life of his dreams. It turns out, though, that after an initial period of exhilaration, lottery winners end up about as happy as they previously were. They start taking their new Ferrari and mansion for granted, the way they previously took their rusted-out pickup and cramped apartment for granted.

Dr. Barry Schwartz says the same thing in different words in the Paradox of Choice:

Imagine yourself out running errands on a hot, humid summer day. After several hours of sweating in the heat, you return home to your air-conditioned house. The feeling of the cool, dry air enveloping you is spectacular. At first it makes you feel revived, invigorated, almost ecstatic. But as time passes, the intense pleasure wanes, replaced by a feeling of simple comfort. While you don’t feel hot, sticky, and tired, you don’t feel cool and energized either. In fact, you don’t feel much of anything. You’ve gotten so accustomed to the air-conditioning that you don’t even notice it.

One of the habits that I am trying to build is a daily practice of negative visualization. That is you visualize yourself without some of the things that we take for granted. For example, try visualizing what would life be when you aren’t able to see as well or hear as well or walk as well? You may not like what’s for dinner, but try and visualize a really hungry person who would gladly enjoy it. This way, I try to remind myself of the air conditioning that I am enjoying in other parts of my life which I have taken for granted. 

Takeaway # 3: Happiness and misery are just states of mind

If we understand the power of anchoring, we can choose our anchors wisely.  Like I said, good and bad are just relative to the anchor. Change the anchor and you change the perspective.

 

Cheers!

Featured photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash