Sway is a quick and interesting read about why people, you and me, do irrational things. For example, the authors show how we do things against our best interests in order to avoid a loss which leads to far greater losses. Like a person whose stock value is dropping, who doesn't sell because he harbors the hope that it will go back up.
We draw conclusions about people or things and these conclusions color all subsequent information that we learn. For example, if we perceive something to be cheap, we treat it as inferior regardless as to its actual worth.
The part that was most worrisome was about how we evaluate people for jobs and longterm relationships. Seems we ask the wrong questions and even when we observe problems, we gloss over them if we have other reasons for favoring the person or thing that we are interested in. We need to do a lot of praying when it comes to shidduchim if we cannot rely on ourselves to make logical decisions! The book shows how vulnerable we are, even as we think we are being rational. It's a sobering look at ourselves.
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It appears that the first humans that Hashem created acted in an irrational way and humans have been doing just that since then.
ReplyDeleteThere is a Jewish woman who made it her business, and it became a big business, to expose the cosmetic industry for the lies that it tells. Apparently the difference in a drugstore and a department store product is simply in the marketing and has nothing to do with product safety or effectiveness. A relatively cheap drugstore wrinkle lotion was tested as being superior to department store wrinkle lotions costing many times the price. We put our trust in products marketed for use on babies when these products turn out to actually be toxic to babies.
Obviously, if we were not blind to some imperfections in a person, no one would ever get married. The same is true of the amnesia that follows childbirth. If we remembered how intense each contraction was, there would be no term, 'brother'.