And i thought..

Yea so Dan Ariely was right. We cannot determine our responses when we are impassioned or have strong emotions. Apparently i didn’t get over the 3rd class honours. Yes its an honours and yes it is true i have done little as compared to the others (but maybe not that little) – illustration of how we feel we have done well as time passes. But the nagging feeling of not having “done well” in an area of life which arguably i should have done better is unsettling.

I would like to caution anyone else that in the case of studies, it actually works out the same way as the closing of doors paradigm of human beings. its just that the doors are so slowly being closed that it is not being noticed whereas the immediate urgency of not being able to join friends on outings(therefore not repeatable and a closed door) is glaring. There should be a balance of our goals with social needs(yes i know sometimes its not just friends) and may i argue world issues so that we may live a full and unregrettable life, knowing that you have done what you could.

On closer examination, have we been set up for a life of unhappiness should we not grasp this important life theory. People derive values for objects from a relative point of view and if so, derive satisfaction of results largely as a comparison to the results of his friends. So it seems happiness on the surface can be achieved in 2 ways.

1) To surround yourself with friends who always have lousier results in life.
2) To not find out what results others have. Or share them

For 1, its obviously a practice that can only get you spiralling downwards in terms of fulfilling your own potential. without a comparison, especially to those who are more accomplished, you do not know where you stand and hence have no impetus to improve or look forward to. There is always the danger of being the smartest person in the room.

As for 2, this is not realistically practical, at least on the face of it, since our dear friends have been trained to compare their lot in life. They have obviously in a positive or negative sense taken solution number 1 to heart and seek to find their placement in the pecking order. While 2 shields you, if carried out well, it may feel a little incomplete for yourself(at least in the beginning i guess) to not know where you stand. After all, it is human nature to categorize things. and of course our results. So SQ maybe on to something here when she chose not to disclose or share her results but then, who knows?

Rational or… not?

Predictably Irrational: Significance of FREE. Zero x 1000000 times more appealing than 1 cent.

Social Norm vs Market Norm – people operate in either mode. gift certificates taken as social norm without mentioning of price and pple willing to do more. social causes more support, open source projects. Prime as market = calculate as market prices. Idea: Tink of work as social norm instead of market norm. Companies trying to change culture to social instead of market to avoid the cynicism of employees.

Power of emotion: people are unable to even nearly be accurate about how they would react under strong emotions: sexual arousal, fear, anger. Dichotomy of the human nature: dr jekyll and mr hide

Fear of closing doors: Humans innate fear of losing out on things. may lead to irrational decisions being put off. paralysis when faced w choosing btw 2 items of similar value. (again may use the lesser comparison technique)  unwilling to cut off all routes even when it clearly has effect on other more desirable choice. Loss of time, energy, opportunity. Applies to dating, career, mundane everyday choices as well.

Today my body seems to start aching from yesterday’s short run. Perhaps its a good day for body rest after all.

Morning interview was pretty fine. Actually it was more like an informal info session about the various job scopes and for me an understanding of how the media world works. Intriguing as always is everything at first notice. Originally looked only at the media planner/buyer position but realized that market research is pretty interesting also. In fact it falls into the realm of social and psychological aspects of the consumer which is about influence. Although at first sight research turned me off but with all jobs there is the more boring aspect. With this the boring part is the number crunching stuff  but of cos analysis of online media blogs, observation, these fall neatly into my sphere of interest. Apparently Marketing came up again during our discussion and mediaedge:cia turned out to not be doing the kind of marketing i thought they were doing but nonetheless presented well with its flash movie. Guess the creative is very important in this aspect.

Media planning involves strategizing where you wan to place your ads, what kinds and how. The outdoor stuff seems to be the stuff i really wanna get at. thoose Moove cows guerilla tactics it seems just like those below the line stuff they mention in marketing. exciting to be able to work directly with these clients. and best of all the ideas change every now and then so u get exposure. The strategizing is actually really the business domain of the client which is not the company’s issue. But the question remains, don’t these clients actually outsource their strategizing, branding to other companies. If there is such a framework, which part of WPP does that. Or is it in other domains and not considered in Media? ooh almost forgot to thank peilin for her sharing. She seems interesting enough but of cos need to spend much more time to know what “kuan” she is.

Hall 2 chicken chop rice brings back memories.

Results out le…so exciting! HHAHAHAHAH