Accountability

Work went much better than yesterday–I stayed engaged on several interesting/difficult problems. At the moment, I’m successfully completing all my tasks, and I have some scheduled leisure time later. It’s strange–one of the excuses that I used to always give myself for not adhering to strict habits is that I didn’t wanna become an overly calculating workaholic. Yet, currently, I’m finding that I have a lot more time to talk to people and have fun–while remaining productive AND happy. It’s been good.

Productive Thinking

Several weekends ago, I went bowling with some friends from work. Partway through the first game, one of my friends decided to yell out during my windup, in a humorous attempt to break my concentration. It worked. After that, I went from bowling largely spares to consecutive zeros/low scores.

Hoping to reset, I started off game two strong with multiple strikes/spares in a row. With me having a comfortable lead, the friend tried again. And it worked again. I scored virtually zero points for the rest of the game.

The moral of the story is this: I tilt very easily and perform really badly under stress.

I wish I knew why, but it’s always been a big part of me going back to when I was a little kid. In my elementary soccer team, I’d be the star during practices, but be unable to play well during games. In my middle school youth orchestra, I’d have solos nailed down immacutely during practice, yet I had this strange tendency to turn beet-red/strain this one particular forehead vein during rehearsals/concerts. Finally, during high school, I could often ace practice tests, yet the night before Olympiad contests, I’d lie awake in bed all night, panicking about the day ahead. And some of the lowest moments of my life have come from choking away Olympiads, after years of studying multiple hours every single day. It sucks.

During past times of high stress, people would reassure me: “hey, it’ll be fine, just relax” or “don’t worry too much, life will go on no matter what happens.” What’s puzzling to me is that I consider myself as someone who’s typically very logical/analytical, yet, as I’m sure anyone who’s struggled with mental situations like this before, it’s basically impossible to shake one’s thoughts/emotions for cold, hard logic. Brains are complicated, man.

I’m currently reading a book called “Misbehaving” by Richard Thaler, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in behavioral economics. In this book, he talks a lot about how the rationality of humans are bounded–certain economically logical decisions and theories do not hold true whatsoever when applied to genuine humans in the real world. He refers to the economically perfect, completely rational, theoretical human individual as “Homo Econ,” or “Econs” for short.

For this particular phenomena, I know I’m not alone–it is well established that the majority of people perform worse in high stress situations. Individuals who do not are not the norm–for example, in sports, such rare individuals are praised as “clutch” and often considered better than their peers as a result.

From a logical perspective, there should be no difference in one’s performance during practice versus the final concert, yet the term “stage fright” is commonly thrown around. More generally speaking, the stakes of the situation should have no direct correlation to people’s performance. Stress does result in biological responses that compromise relevant brain processes, but the fact that stress arises in the first place is illogical. An “Econ” would be able to discern that there is no need to worry as it can simply repeat the task at the same level that it has done said task at before.

Sometimes, I really wish I was an Econ. I try my best to live my life through logical decisions, yet my tendency to choke under pressure is a glaring break from a rational character. My frustration and sadness due to missed opportunities and failed goals magnify this desire. However, thinking more about it, it is irrational faults like these that give flavor to society. Without the uncertainty of my performance at a given time, life would be a lot more predictable and boring (I’d also probably push myself far less). And if people were completely rational, we wouldn’t have donation campaigns, gift giving on special occasions would be obselete, and all the random quirks that surround arbitrary numerics in society would disappear.

So although I’m still going to desperately strive to reduce my choking habits, perhaps it’s time for me to stop resenting its existence and appreciate the fact that inefficiencies make humans who they are.