Belief, Bacon and Botox

The power of our beliefs is so strong it influences every decision we make and WE DON'T EVEN KNOW IT! It's actually kind of scary if you think about it. Let me give you a very simple example from Predictably Irrational. In blind taste tests a majority of people choose Pepsi over Coke. If the labels are revealed before the test, a majority choose Coke. We see the Coke label and choose Coke, but we actually like the way Pepsi tastes better. We believe we like Coke better and thus we choose Coke. Our belief creates our reality rather than our actual experience.

This happens to all of us many times a day. Let's say you are female (or fat or a minority or have a slight limp or etc. etc. etc.) and you are ignored at a car dealership. This happened to me, and I assumed it was because I was female (insert your perceived reason for what you see as a slight - fat, minority, etc. here) and was seen as having no buying power or that I would come back with the man in my life to actually make a purchase. Now I have no idea if this is the reason I was ignored. Maybe everyone was just busy. But to this day, I believe it was because I was a woman alone. See how our beliefs can impact us? I saw a slight where none may have existed.

I've found the recent horror stories about the economy impacting me. Let's face it, you can't live on this planet and not hear regularly about the mortgage crisis, people getting kicked out of their homes, layoffs, the price of gas, the stock market falling, AAAIIIEEE! It's the Grapes of Wrath!! We are all one step away from a Frigidaire box under a bridge!!! Grab your children - start collecting aluminum cans - dump your evil SUV, get a Prius - we are going down!!!!

Now, if I look at my situation, I am doing fine! My income is up over last year, financially I am doing very well. But hearing all this day in and day out is changing my beliefs. Instead of planning a big trip this year, I'm paying off my mortgage. I'm being much more careful with my money. I'm more risk averse. (Of course, if everyone is doing this, it only makes the economy worse, but that's a blog for someone else to write.) The media is very powerful in shaping our beliefs - it's very scary how much so.

Don't like the economic example? How about how we feel about our bodies? The shade of our teeth? Our hair? Our wrinkles? When women get poison injected into their foreheads and can no longer convey emotion, things have gotten a bit scary. The belief is that aging is bad and smoother skin is worth giving up your time, money, and ability to express emotion for. This, of course, is a losing battle - but belief (I must be eternally young to be loved and have value) offsets rationality (I can't be eternally young and my value has nothing to do with the appearance of my forehead).

I wonder if I would have liked the Chocolate Bacon Bar if I hadn't know it had bacon in it - if I thought it had nuts or something else salty? I wonder if I would be better off to say, "Damn the economy, I'm going to Disneyland!" I wonder how many times my own insecurities have pushed someone away? What beliefs do you hold that influence your actions and experiences? I think the key to happiness is figuring out what they are and making sure you really want to hang onto them.

ChocoTour 2008 Begins!

Thumbing my nose at the Middle East and the price of gas, today I drove from Raleigh, NC to the mountain metropolis of Frostburg, Maryland. I started listening to a great book - Predictably Irrational. I'm just getting into it and I'm sure I'll have more to share on that soon. So far my thoughts are: traffic within a hundred mile radius of DC is a nightmare and the mountains of Maryland are breathtakingly gorgeous.

The action really starts tomorrow when I visit Falling Water.

But, since my heart belongs to this blog, I had to find something of interest in my last convenience store stop to write about. This is intriguing and disturbing all at the same time (one of my favorite combinations). Hershey's has partnered with Bubble Yum (geez, Hershey's probably owns Bubble Yum - yep, I googled it - they do) to create more dreaded chocolate gum! The package is cool - chocolate brown with the pink Bubble Yum logo and a smaller Hershey's logo with the scary words "genuine chocolate flavor." If you ever see this combination of words, drop the product you are holding and run away - fast. And far. And don't look back. And for God's sake - don't eat it!!!!

I actually bought and chewed this gum so you, dear reader, would not have to. First of all, let me tell you that chocolate gum is a tease. When I have chocolate in my mouth, I want to eat it, not chew it. The closest I ever want to get to chocolate gum is the Tootsie Roll (and I really like the Tootsie Roll). You chew the Tootsie Roll but that's just on the way to eating it. Chewing it is not an end in itself. So I am now opposed to all chocolate chewing gum no matter how good. Chocolate is made to be eaten, not chewed.

The first thing that hit me was the yucky weird taste. After a while, it tastes a little better, maybe because you are over the initial shock and horror? By the time it lost its flavor, I was reminded of hot cocoa mix and plastic. Not good. And each piece has 25 calories! More than a Tootsie Roll Midgee! No good, no good at all.

Ah - I AM going to get to talk about Predictably Irrational after all! In fact, it's the only thing that can explain how the tasters at Hershey allowed this nastiness to bear the Hershey name. Let's begin with the premise that the folks at Hershey decided they wanted to make chocolate gum (the train went off the tracks right here - no one stopped to consider if this was a good idea or not. Or maybe they asked some kids - kids will agree to anything that involves chocolate). But chocolate flavor adds nothing to bubble gum and gum adds nothing to chocolate. But I bet they decided to make a chocolate gum regardless.

Once you've decided to make a chocolate gum, you produce some samples. Some are probably horrible, but you keep trying. The investment of money and energy, etc. increases. Because you have worked so hard and spent so much time, when you get a chocolate gum that tastes much better than the initial chocolate gum - you throw a party and (irrationally) convince yourself you've got a mighty fine product! You only compared the final chocolate gum to the earlier crappy chocolate gum. You didn't compare it to regular bubble gum or a Snickers bar.

We like to compare things. We ask ourselves, "Would I rather marry Joe or Bob?" not "Do I really want to get married at all?" And we compare similar things - if you are trying to choose one of three vacation sites and two are in the beach and one is in the mountains, you are going to the beach (the odds are higher than 2 out of 3). So says the book. Fascinating!

Let's just pray no one decides to make peanut butter gum.