I have been reading a lot of articles from the Breakonomics PDF files that our professor gave us and I chanced upon an article written by a girl who graduated probably two years ago, Sorry, I forgot the name. I only read the title and the contents. I'm bad with names also. Anyway, the writers of the magazine pretty much focus on basic economic concepts such as sunk costs, budget constraints, opportunity costs and trade-offs. Much like me! But this girl provided me with a term I have rarely encountered.
It was only a couple of minutes ago that I realized I read it from my Business Statistics book. Anyway, there is an economic/mathematical concept called path dependence. This concept helps you predict the future outcome/result of an action or event based on historical data or past events that already occurred. This is very interesting.
Put the case of a 90% free-throw shooter! Whenever he shoots the ball, the probability of the ball going in the basket is 50-50. He either misses it or makes it. Those are the only two outcomes. But since he has a record of making 9 free throws out of ten, people would of course expect him to make the free throw.
Another case, let's say a student loves to cram. Every time he fails a test however, he says he's going to stop cramming. Let's say it's new year and his resolution is to stop cramming. You think he'll really stop cramming? According to past events, there is a high chance that he would continue to cram.
This makes me reflect on what I learned from my mentor. Commitment to a schedule and strengthening one's will to do what one has to is very important because it forges character. Put it simply, having a good historical data of one's ventures and life in general, would increase the chances of building a good character and a happy life.
I like increasing my odds!
I leave you with this quote:
Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of. - Anonymous
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