Archive for November, 2006

The Classics on Youtube . . . My next book

Published
by
Mike
on November 30, 2006
in Books, Church of Christ and music
. 63 Comments

There’s a book I’ve been wanting to write for a decade. But I haven’t been ready.

Now I’m ready. I’m going to try to start working on it during “spare time” (ha!), and then the elders have given me some time this June to finish it.

It’s very important to me, and I’d appreciate your prayers. I’ll tell you more about it later.

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You asked for it. You got it. (The antecedent of “you” is a few readers with a warped sense of humor.) “Mike Cope Sings the Classics” from the ‘05 Zoe Conference.

Thanks to Matt Maxwell, my tech guru, for getting this on youtube. He and I filmed the whole thing in about an hour, and then Grant Boone added the impromptu voice-over later.

The Attack on Big Mac

Published
by
Mike
on November 29, 2006
in Baseball
. 47 Comments

I read yesterday morning that Mark McGuire isn’t likely to make it into the Hall of Fame — at least not on this round. I understand the frustration of the sports writers: long-time records have been broken by people who were cheating.

The difficult part is this: how do we know exactly who HAS and who HAS NOT been getting juiced? Is body mass the only indication?

The McGuire/Sosa year was such a magical one for baseball fans. Little did we know (at least for sure) at the time that it was a question of whose steroids were better.

On one hand, how do you keep out someone with almost 600 home runs who has the highest home run ratio in history (a home run every 10.61 at bats); yet on the other hand, how do you allow someone in who knowingly broke the rules?

Glad I’m not having to vote. As a Cardinals fan, it would be tough.

What do you think?

The Color of Law

Published
by
Mike
on November 28, 2006
in Books, Salt and Light and justice
. 26 Comments

After ten years in a large Dallas law firm and after making partner, Mark Gimenez has moved with his family outside Ft. Worth to write.

But after eleven years in a large Dallas law firm and after making partner, A. Scott Fenney had no such plans. His future was money. Green, it turns out, is The Color of Law.

Fenney, a former star running back at SMU who married Miss SMU, has been on the fast track with a Dallas firm. But after he gives a rousing speech to colleagues about the nobility of law, invoking the memories of his mother reading to him about Atticus Finch (a speech which he later admits he didn’t believe), a federal judge appoints him to represent a black prostitute from East Dallas who is being charged with murder.

And, we learn, the man she supposedly murdered after he picked her up on Harry Hines Boulevard is the son of a powerful, wealthy Texas senator with aspirations for the White House.

Representing her holds the potential for career suicide since the powerful senator will do anything to keep the name of his son from being raked through the mud — which would be required since the son had a history of slapping around prostitutes and dates.

He comes to a critical fork in the road: will he continue with the dream life in “the Bubble” of Highland Park, or will he provide the counsel for this young mother?

As the Texas Monthly said, The Color of Law is “an unbeatable legal thriller with a lot of heart.”

It would be a great novel for a group of university students to work through along with To Kill a Mockingbird, which it continually refers back to. (Fair, warning, however: If Grisham is PG and Turow is R, Gimenez’s first novel is maybe a PG-13. Or, say, PG-16.)

I won’t be surprised if sometime I find out that “Mark Gimenez” is a pen name for Larry James. For through the events of the story, Gimenez forces us to think about the gap between a place like Highland Park and a place like East Dallas. How could two places be so close and so far?

I liked knowing the city where the action is set. I’ve driven down those roads (Lover’s Lane, Mockingbird, Preston Road, etc.) and seen those shopping centers.

But at the same time, there is discomfort. Here are some passages:

“A concrete-and-steel landscape as far as the eye can see, all the way to the brown haze of pollution that perpetually rings the city above the loop, treeless and barren, the city’s master plan obvious — to pave over every square inch of green . . . . Which might explain Dallas’s ranking as the ugliest major city in America. Other than women, Dallas has no natural beauty whatsoever. No ocean or lake or water of any kind except the Trinity River running west of downtown, used for decades as a natural sewage system and today as a big drainage ditch. No Central Park, no Rocky Mountains, and no Miami Beach. No wonderful weather. Nothing other great cities have. All Dallas has is a white X on Elm Street marking the exact spot where an American president was killed. But then, you don’t live in Dallas for any of that; you live in Dallas to make a lot of money fast.”

“Grammar skills notwithstanding, she was a fine example of what Texas men most want — a gorgeous Texas girl. Texas myths were many, but one was no myth: the most gorgeous girls in the world were found in Texas. Dallas, Texas. Girls like her, they graduate from high school or maybe junior college, and from small towns all across Texas they had straight to Dallas like moths to light. They come for the jobs, they come for the nightlife, they come for the single men making lots of money, the kind of money that buys big homes and fancy cars and fashionable clothes and glittery jewelry guaranteed to bring a smile to any Texas girl’s face. Girl wants to marry a refinery worker and live in a double-wide, she moves to Houston; girl wants to marry money and live in a mansion, she moves to Dallas.”

“Developed in 1906 on thirteen hundred acres of high land above downtown Dallas, Highland Park today is a sanctuary of elegant homes, landscaped lawns, and broad avenues canopied by towering oak trees. On its wide sidewalks European nannies and Mexican maids can be seen pushing the heirs of the great Texas fortunes in strollers while their fathers — billionaires and millionaires and the lawyers who tend to them — work in the downtown skyscrapers and their mothers play tennis at the country club and shop at Anne Fontaine, Luca Luca, and Botega Veneta in the Highland Park Village shopping center, its Spanish Mediterranean architecture and quaint stucco buildings with terra-cotta roofs and decorative wrought iron harking back to a distant time and place when great wealth was reserved for people of a certain class, not just anyone who could dunk a basketball. Visitors from California say the town reminds them of Beverly Hills, and with good reason: the same architect who designed Beverly Hills designed Highland Park. Only difference is, the founders of Beverly Hills did not file deed restrictions that legally limited home ownership in their new town to white people only; the founders of Highland Park did. Almost a hundred years later, the Town of Highland Park is a two-square-mile island entirely surrounded by the 384-square-mile City of Dallas. It’s an island of white in an ocean of color: Dallas, a city of 1.2 million residents, is now only 39 percent white; while Highland Park, a town of 8,850 residents, remains 98 percent white, with not a single home owned by a black person. It’s an island of wealth — on any given day over a hundred homes in Highland Park will be listed for sale at prices exceeding $1 million. It’s an island immune from the crime and social ills that affect Dallas — Highland Park kids call their hometown “the Bubble,” happy to be insulated from the outside world that beckons at the town boundary — albeit an island without a river or stream or even a moat to keep the outside world out, only the highest home prices in Texas, a well-armed police force, and a long-standing reputation that if you’re black or brown and don’t live there, you’d damn well better be passing through.”

“Thirty-six years Scott Fenney had lived in Dallas and not once had he driven into South Dallas. White people drove south of downtown three times each year and only for events held within the gated Fair Park grounds — the State Fair, the Oklahoma-Texas football game, and the Cotton Bowl game — being careful to stay on the interstate, to take the Fair Park exit, and to drive directly through the park gates without detour or delay. White people never drove into South Dallas, into the neighborhoods and mean streets of South Dallas, into the other Dallas of crime and crack cocaine, prostitution and poverty, drive-by shootings and gangbangers, into black Dallas . . . .”

When he continues to represent the woman on trial, his senior partner says to him:

“When I graduated from law school, Scotty, a wise older lawyer gave me some good advice. He said, ‘Dan, every new lawyer must make a fundamental choice from which every other decision in his professional life will flow. And that choice is simple: Do you want to do good or do well? Do you want to make money or make the world a better place? Do you want to drive a Cadillac or a Chevrolet? Do you want to send your kids to private schools or public schools? Do you want to be a rich lawyer or a poor lawyer?’ He said, ‘Dan, if you want to do good, go work for legal aid and help the little people fighting their landlords and the utility companies and the police and feel good about it. But don’t have regrets twenty years later when your classmates are living in nice homes and driving new cars and taking vacations in Europe. And you have to tell your kids they can’t go to an Ivy League school because you did good.’”

Well, I have so many other passages marked. It is about Dallas, but it far transcends one city. It’s about lawyers, but it moves far beyond that.

It’s about justice, isolation, racism, materialism, law, service, courage, character, and beauty. (”Rebecca Fenney was still remarkably beautiful, still the most beautiful woman in Highland Park, still able to compete with a twenty-two-year old for her lawyer. But the day would come for her, she knew; and with each passing day, Rebecca Fenney was a day older and a day less beautiful.”)

It’s about Atticus Finch. Even before he was Gregory Peck.

At a critical moment when Fenney is explaining to his senior partner that without good representation his client would unfairly be put to death in Texas, the older man got a puzzled look and replied, “And how does that affect your life?” For anyone who’s read the gospels, they know how important that question is.

It’s a question that hits him hard in the nose when his former secretary doesn’t seem too torn up by his leaving. She says:

“For eleven years I’ve fetched your dry cleaning and coffee, run your personal errands, paid your personal bills, shopped for gifts for your wife and child and clients, lied to clients for you . . . Did you care about me? About my life? You never once asked about my life. Do you know I have a handicapped child and that’s the only reason I’ve put up with you for all these years? Because I needed the money? You didn’t know and you didn’t care. Did you care when Mr. Walker got fired? No. Like every other lawyer here, you care only about yourself.”

The ending is not as strong as the rest, I thought, but, heh–it’s a first novel. And quite a good one at that. I look forward to more novels from Gimenez.

Reading it makes me very thankful for those who are working to bridge the gap between haves and have nots, and it makes me grateful for those lawyers I know who still understand that the color of law is not green. They are, indeed, salt and light in the world.

Published
by
Mike
on November 27, 2006
in family
. 20 Comments

Today Jantsen Barrett Cope would have been 23. I wish you could have known him. My life is richer for having known him, yet sadder for not seeing him turn 23.

Here are the five of us (well, six of us, really) from my brother’s house in Missouri:

And here are the eighteen of us:

Here is Chris taking a swing at a curveball from his seven-year-old cousin, Van:

And I love this shot of Diane and Jenna. Just like her mother-in-law, Jenna looks beautiful pregnant. (I’m talking about her mother-in-law many years ago . . . not now. Still beautiful. But not pregnant.)

For 28 years now Diane and I have alternated Christmases between Missouri and Ohio. The only exception was the year Megan died. It was an Ohio year (always an even-numbered year), and Diane’s family all came to Abilene, knowing it would be hard for us to break away.

I hope you had a refreshing time with your family or with others whom you love.

Tomorrow I plan to review the book The Color of Law.

Back in MO

Published
by
Mike
on November 24, 2006
in family and memories
. 25 Comments

Something comes alive inside when I’m here in the Ozarks. The towering oaks, the cliffs, the hills, the lush grass, the ponds and streams.

What’s continually surprising is how Wal-Mart is changing this part of the world. With prices much higher in NW Arkansas, the dramatic growth is now heading north into McDonald County, Missouri. Tiny little towns where I sold newspaper subscriptions as a boy are now booming with people working in Arkansas and living in Missouri. I’ve heard that Jane, Missouri is projected to be the fifth largest city in Missouri in another decade. (Bet you’ve never heard of Jane, MO.)

It isn’t just Wal-Mart people locating here at the world’s largest retailer’s headquarters. It’s all the other companies that have offices full of people who can work constantly with Wal-Mart. (Someone estimated that Proctor and Gamble alone may have hundreds in their office here just to work closely with Wal-Mart.)

I’m sure lots of people who come must think they’ve fallen off the earth into some redneck decade of the past. When you land at the NW Arkansas airport (xna), if you look out the window you realize there are airstrips with cow pastures all around.

One slightly sad thing is that as you drive through McDonald county you don’t see scores of old pick-ups. You see hundreds (and thousands during rush hour, I’m told) of expensive SUVs. And — I can hardly believe this — I saw a sign advertising single family homes in the 290s. Are you kidding me? In NW Arkansas/ SW Missouri? The governor’s home is supposed to be in the 290s!

Ah, well, a bit of nostagia. Hopefully these people coming in are still floating on Elk River and staring in amazement as they pass the bluffs of Noel. Hopefully they’re still going to Twin Bridges to fish. I hope they can take in the “Shepherd of the Hills” play. (Branson was a tiny town with a small play and a little “Silver Dollar City” when I was growing up. The only country music played on the car radio from a station out of Springfield.) I hope they can go on a hay ride to see the spook light near Seneca and can drive into Neosho to spend an afternoon at Big Spring Park — catching crawdads and climbing the hills.

I went to bed last night with the sounds of the cousins (and Aunt Diane) playing spoons. It’s such a wonderful sound.

The turkey was delicious; everyone in our family made it to grandma’s; we took an afternoon walk with perfect, sunny weather; and the Cowboys won.

That’s a good day. (How was YOUR Thanksgiving?)

Published
by
Mike
on November 22, 2006
in General
. 52 Comments

I listened to very painful testimony on NPR this morning by a young woman who was forced by America’s most prominent polygamist, Warren Jeffs, to marry her nineteen-year-old cousin when she was just fourteen. She remembers pleading with Jeffs not to make her marry him or to have sex with him.

But she was told that a woman’s job is to submit. She was threatened with hell. She was told to yield to authority. God’s authority.

Religious fundamentalism when combined with Taliban-like views of human beings (male and female) is such a frightening thing.

I hope they charge Jeffs with assisting in a rape. A child was forced to have sex because “it was God’s will.” Or so said the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints. There’s always some religious authority who has a direct line to God and an infallible interpretation of scripture.

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Kramer has gone from being incredibly funny — a master of physical comedy — to being very unfunny. Likely you’ve seen clips of his outburst at a comedy club either on the news or on youtube.

In his disingenuous apology, he insisted that he isn’t a racist — that the horrible things he was screaming at some African-American hecklers don’t really represent who he is. (Mel Gibson, part two.)

Jesus, the world’s wisest teacher ever, said that it is “out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).

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Have a wonderful, refreshing holiday.

Why More Is Less #3

Published
by
Mike
on November 21, 2006
in Books and Megan
. 24 Comments

What is it that makes us happy? That’s one of the fundamental questions Barry Schwartz pursues in The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less.

Despite what many assume, it doesn’t appear to be money. Studies show that there is greater happiness in wealthy countries than in poor countries. But, “once a society’s level of per capita wealth crosses a threshold from poverty to adequate subsistence, further increases in national wealth have almost no effect on happiness. You find as many happy people in Poland as in Japan, for example, even though the average Japanese is almost ten times richer than the average Pole. And Poles are much happier than Hungarians (and Icelandics much happier than Americans) despite similar levels of wealth.”

Well, what about close relationships? It is true that people who have close marriages and/or close friendships are happier. But Schwartz suggests this may be a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Which comes first: happiness or relationships?

“Miserable people are surely less likely than happy people to have close friends, devoted family, and enduring marriages. So it is at least possible that happiness comes first and close relations come second.”

So much of happiness comes down to decisions we make to be contented. The problem with a maximizing approach to life (see the last two posts) is that we’re never quite satisfied. They could have chosen (a car . . . a spouse . . . a church) better, perhaps, so they’re always looking over their shoulders and living in regret.

So, “What to Do About Choice?” he asks in the final chapter. Schwartz offers 11 suggestions, of which I’m passing on just four.

1. Choose when to choose.

With an overabundance of options surrounding us with almost everything, we have to decide how many options we’re going to consider and how much time we’re going to expend.

“Restricting yourself in this way may seem both difficult and arbitrary, but actually, this is the kind of discipline we exercise in other aspects of life. You may have a rule of thumb never to have more than two glasses of wine at a sitting. The alcohol tastes good and it makes you feel good and the opportunity for another drink is right at your elbow, yet you stop. And for most people, it isn’t that hard to stop.”

2. Satisfice more and maximize less.

“Learning to accept ‘good enough’ will simplify decision making and increase satisfaction. Though satisficers may often do less well than maximizers according to certain objective standards, nonetheless, by settling for ‘good enough’ even when the ‘best’ could be just around the corner, satisficers will usually feel better about the decisions they make. . . . Becoming a conscious, intentional satisficer makes comparison with how other people are doing less important. It makes regret less likely. In the complex, choice-saturated world we live in, it makes peace of mind possible.”

3. Make your decisions nonreversible.

When a decision we make is final, our mind moves toward ownership of the choice. Schwartz points out that this is clearer with the big decisions, and there’s a lot of street wisdom in these words about marriage:

“A friend once told me how his minister had shocked the congregation with a sermon on marriage in which he said flatly that, yes, the grass is always greener. What he meant was that, inevitably, you will encounter people who are younger, better looking, funnier, smarter, or seemingly more understanding and empathetic than your wife or husband. But finding a life partner is not a matter of comparison shopping and ‘trading up.’ The only way to find happiness and stability in the presence of seemingly attractive and tempting options is to say, ‘I’m simply not going there. I’ve made my decision about a life partner, so this person’s empathy or that person’s looks really have nothing to do with me. I’m not in the market — end of story.’ Agonizing over whether your love is ‘the real thing’ or your sexual relationship above or below par, and wondering whether you could have done better is a prescription for misery. Knowing that you’ve made a choice that you will not reverse allows you to pour your energy into improving the relationship that you have rather than constantly second-guessing it.”

4. Practice an “attitude of gratitude.”

“We can vastly improve our subjective experience by consciously striving to be grateful more often for what is good about a choice or an experience, and to be disappointed less by what is bad about it.”

He suggests putting a notepad by your bed and every day, either when you wake up or just before you fall asleep, jotting down five things from that day (or the day before) for which you’re grateful. Most of the time those things will be small, but the practice will help nurture a spirit of joy, contentment, and gratitude rather than one of disappointment, regret, and dissatisfaction.

And with that — Happy Thanksgiving!

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I hope you saw these words yesterday from my buddy Richard B., who is a researching fanatic. (He’s also a rock star on the ACU campus — with the huge Walling lecture hall filling up for his classes.)

Two summers ago I worked with some students on research in this area. We expanded Schwartz’s maximizing and satisficing into the “religious marketplace” (e.g., people who try to look for the “best” church, or “best” worship, or “best” preaching). Our results mirrored Schwartz: These people were much less satisfied with church and tended to switch churches more often. By contrast, “religious satisficers” just picked a church, settled in, and went to work. And were much happier.

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An example of why I try not to miss what David Brooks writes.

“I have a rule, which has never failed me, that when a writer uses quotations from Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and the Left Behind series to capture the religious and political currents in modern America, then I know I can put that piece of writing down because the author either doesn’t know what he is talking about or is arguing in bad faith.”

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Today makes twelve years. My, how quickly they’ve flown. We still miss her.

Why More Is Less #2

Published
by
Mike
on November 20, 2006
in Books
. 17 Comments

The question of contentment, Schwartz says, boils down to whether you are a maximizer or a satisficer.

A maximizer needs for every decision or every purchase to be the very best that could possibly be made. It “creates a daunting task, which becomes all the more daunting as the number of options increases.” After making a selection, a maximizer can easily be plagued by doubts about whether or not the very best thing was purchased.

The satisficer is someone who settles for something that works — something that is good enough — without fretting over whether or not there is something better. “A satisficer has criteria and standards. She searches until she finds an item that meets those standards, and at that point, she stops. As soon as she finds a sweater that meets her standard of fit, quality, and price in the very first store she enters, she buys it — end of story. She is not concerned about better sweaters or better bargains just around the corner.”

Even though there are certain areas where making the very best choice is needed, someone who fits Schwartz’s definition of a maximizer is likely in for a life with lots of dissatisfaction.

So, how do you know which you are? He suggests a quick test. You write a number from 1 (completely disagree) to 7 (completely agree) for each of his questions.

1. When I’m faced with a choice, I try to imagine what all the other possibilities are, even ones that aren’t present at the moment.

2. No matter how satisfied I am with my job, it’s only right for me to be on the lookout for better opportunities.

3. When I am in the car listening to the radio, I often check other stations to see if something better is playing, even if I am relatively satisfied with what I’m listening to.

4. When I watch TV, I channel surf, often scanning through the available options even while attempting to watch one program.

5. I treat relationships like clothing: I expect to try a lot on before finding the perfect fit.

6. I often find it difficult to shop for a gift for a friend.

7. Renting videos is really difficult. I’m always struggling to pick the best one.

8. When shopping, I have a hard time finding clothing that I really love.

9. I’m a big fan of lists that attempt to rank things (the best movies, the best singers, the best athletes, the best novels, etc.).

10. I find that writing is very difficult, even if it’s just writing a letter to a friend, because it’s so hard to word things just right. I often do several drafts of even simple things.

11. No matter what I do, I have the highest standards for myself.

12. I never settle for second best.

13. I often fantasize about living in ways that are quite different from my actual life.

Schwartz found that maximizers take longer to compare and decide on most purchases, they tend to look over their shoulders at what others are deciding, and they are much more likely to later regret what they did.

He and his fellow researches also have found that maximizers “experienced less satisfaction with life, were less happy, were less optimistic, and were more depressed than people with low maximization scores. In fact, people with extreme maximization scores — scores of 65 or more out of 91 — had depression scores that placed them in the borderline clinical depression range.”

And that’s why this is so important.

One student can hardly enjoy his education. He agonized about which school to go to, concerned to get in the very best one possible to up his chances for later getting into the very best law school. After deciding late in the game, he insisted on the very best classes with the very best teachers. Now he worries that he made the wrong decision — about which school and about one or two of his classes.

Another student, sitting right next to him, is having a blast. He, too, had high standards for his education. But once his decision was made, he went with it. He’s glad to be where he is and knows he’s preparing for the future.

One investor aches every time she reads an article about some Vanguard fund that is outperforming her mutual stocks. She keeps hearing about people whose money is doubling quicker than hers. So she drives her investment person crazy, constantly changing investment strategies — perhaps not even realizing the fees involved every time she changes.

Another investor has her funds in the same place, but she doesn’t obsess about it. She thoroughly investigated, having decided on certain standards and a certain strategy, and then went with it. Now, even though she continues to pay attention, she doesn’t obsess. She enjoys watching the money grow.

A maximizer is often wondering if there isn’t a better gift, a better church, a better doctor, a better vitamin, a better health club, a better cable option . . . . It isn’t just about high standards; it’s about a sense of discontentment (fueled, perhaps by concern for social status and the explosion of options).

“For a maximizer, the overload of choice . . . is a nightmare. But for a satisficer, it does not have to be such a burden. In fact, the more options there are, the more likely it is that the satisficer will find one that meets his or her standards. Adding options doesn’t necessarily add much work for the satisficer, because the satisficer feels no compulsion to check out all the possibilities before deciding.”

Tomorrow: happiness, contentment, and relationships.

Why More Is Less

Published
by
Mike
on November 17, 2006
in Books
. 35 Comments

Barry Schwartz went to The Gap for a pair of jeans. He admits that, since he wears them until they completely fall apart, he hadn’t shopped for jeans for a long time.

He gave his size to the salesperson, 32-28, thinking that this would pretty much take care of it. But then a dizzying list of choices came: button-fly or zipper-fly? faded or nonfaded? stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? regular fit, relaxed fit, or easy fit? and, of course, what brand?

In his excellent book The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less he says:

“The jeans I chose turned out just fine, but it occurred to me that day that buying a pair of pants should not be a daylong project. By creating all these options, the store undoubtedly had done a favor for customers with varied tastes and body types. However, by vastly expanding the range of choices, they had also created a new problem that needed to be solved. Before these options were available, a buyer like myself had to settle for an imperfect fit, but at least purchasing jeans was a five-minute affair. Now it was a complex decision in which I was forced to invest time, energy, and no small amount of self-doubt, anxiety, and dread.

“Buying jeans is a trivial matter, but it suggests a much larger theme . . . which is this: When people have no choice, life is almost unbearable. As the number of available choices increases, as it has in our consumer culture, the autonomy, control, and liberation this variety brings are powerful and positive. But as the number of choices keeps growing negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates.”

Anyone who’s traveled much appreciates our local supermarkets. But are there times that you are worn out by the choices? Have you ever gotten lost in the pain relief section? How many kinds of ibuprofen can there be? And do you really want ibuprofen or Tylenol or aspirin or . . . ? How about toothpaste: Crest or Colgate or AquaMan (or whatever it is)? whitening or nonwhitening? mint or fresh mint?

How about shopping for computers, printers, DVD players, cell phones? To say nothing of local telephone plans, long distance plans, electric company, wireless connectivity . . . . Is it any wonder that two decades after the fall of Ma Bell, 60% of the market is still ruled by AT&T, and half those customers just settle for the basic rates on the basic plans?

What church are you going to attend? Which service will you be at? Where are you going for your vacation? Who do you want to perform your colonoscopy now that you’re 50 (just to pull one out of the air)?

Schwartz points out some of the factors that impact the choices we make.

One example is anchoring. When we walk into a store, we tend to compare the prices, not realizing how much the stores have used anchoring to steer our purchases. If you see an $80 shirt in a store where most shirts are $40, it seems extravagant. But what if right next to it are a few shirts for $120? Then it begins to seem more reasonable.

He tells of one catalogue company that sells kitchen equipment which offered an automatic bread maker for $279. Few sold. Then they added a super-delux automatic bread maker for $429. Sales of the $279 one soared. With the super-delux model as the anchor, the other looked like a reasonable bargain.

We’re also impacted, often unknowingly, by framing. Do you buy the yogurt that is 5% fat or the one that is 95% fat free? Go for the fat free one — even though 95% fat free means it does have 5% fat. It just sounds more healthy.

“Even with relatively unimportant decisions, mistakes can take a toll. When you put a lot of time and effort into choosing a restaurant or a place to go on vacation or a new item of clothing, you want that effort to be rewarded with a satisfying result. As options increase, the effort involved in making decisions increases, so mistakes hurt even more. Thus the growth of options and opportunities for choice has three, related, unfortunate effects. It means that decisions require more effort. It makes mistakes more likely. It makes the psychological consequences of mistakes more severe.”

Next I’ll come to the big payoff of the book: the difference between a maximizer and a satisficer. There are some important things there about contentment, about joy, and even about marriage.

LJ’s Blog

Published
by
Mike
on November 16, 2006
in General
. 7 Comments

You knew this was coming, didn’t you? (11-16-06 post)

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I’m back from the whirlwind trip to Nashville — emphasis on the WIND part since all but two runways of DFW were closed because of the 50 mph winds.

This Sunday is one of my favorite each year — sack Sunday.

I have more to post about choice and about contentment. Just no time at the moment.