Journey to the Undiscovered Country
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. ~Ecclesiastes 9:11
In oder for anything I'm about to say to make sense we have to agree on one very important point: The future is unknown and unknowable. It's fine to think that your actions today will effect what happens tomorrow, indeed that is the whole point of the endeavor. But you have to judge decisions on only the information available at the time the decision was made. Though we'll be getting to gambling examples, let's start out with some real life examples. I'll tell how the decisions panned out later. Please judge in your mind whether or not the following are good or bad decisions.
1.A child decides to run across a busy street without looking both ways.
2.A man decides to marry a women he met yesterday at a strip club.
3.A hiker carrying several bottles of drinking water decides to drink out of a stagnant pool, just to be closer to nature.
4. A young boy with all the right stuff decides he wants to be an astronaut.
Alright, have you got your answers? If you are like most people you've probably answered BAD to 1-3 and GOOD to #4. These were not hypothetical situations, I was in fact talking about real people. Here's the outcomes:
1.The child was me. The busy street was Park Avenue in New York, and thanks to chance I'm still here to write this, though after a scolding from my Mother I never ran into a street again without looking both ways.
2.The man's name was Tom, the gal he married was one of my high-school sweethearts, a girl named Lisa. To my knowledge they have been happy for 12 years now and have two children.
3.The hiker was my old roommate Michael and as far as I know he suffered no ill effects from drinking out of the pool. His life took a turn for the worse soon thereafter in a car accident that cost him his job and good health. It occurred on a dark empty country road at night, due to a tire blowout. Nothing he could have done.
4.The young boy became astronaut Gus Grissom. He was the first man to fly into space more than once, though the second time was his last. He died in that fateful Apollo I mission along with Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
Now, after knowing the outcomes to these real life non-fictional events would you change your answers and:
1.Recommend to your child that they run across roads without looking both ways.
2.Marry exotic dancers you've just met yesterday.
3.Believe that is always safe to drink out of standing water found along a mountain path.
4.Believe that no one should ever become an astronaut, because it's a death sentence.
We can only hope these aren't your conclusions and that knowing the outcomes of those situations wouldn't change your thinking in any way. It's just not a good idea to run across busy streets without looking, and no amount of survivors will ever make it so, or make up for the ones that ended up as roadkill. This is the fundamental premise behind results and outcomes not justifying bad decisions. In gambling it's just a little harder to see.
Gambling Example
Imagine it's seven o'clock. You've just walked into your favorite casino. After looking around for thirty minutes to find the highest return game, you make your choice on what you'll play that day. However, you come over all peckish and decide on a nosh first. While in the coffee shop a friend of yours walks in and says, “hay what cha doin”. You tell him that you are here to play and what game you'll be on after dinner. He then asks, “Is that a good idea?”
How do you answer? (You have not played yet, you have only made your choice as to what you will play later).
Now here's your job: I want you to judge the choice you've made without knowing the outcome. Why? because this is exactly how we HAVE to make decisions everyday in all aspects of life. We never know the outcome prior to making a decision.
If you cannot answer the question, “Is that a good idea?”, without knowing how the decision pans out, then you could have mild to moderate cognitive distortion. It means you aren't judging your decisions prior to making them. You are crossing the road first and then deciding whether or not you should have looked both ways. You have to be able to answer, “Is that a good idea?” before you sit down. And here's the part that's so hard to understand, if it was a good idea, a bad outcome doesn't change anything. When you made the decision, you didn't know what the outcome would be. You made the best choice you could, given the information you had at the time. That is all we can ever do.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. ~Ecclesiastes 9:11
In oder for anything I'm about to say to make sense we have to agree on one very important point: The future is unknown and unknowable. It's fine to think that your actions today will effect what happens tomorrow, indeed that is the whole point of the endeavor. But you have to judge decisions on only the information available at the time the decision was made. Though we'll be getting to gambling examples, let's start out with some real life examples. I'll tell how the decisions panned out later. Please judge in your mind whether or not the following are good or bad decisions.
1.A child decides to run across a busy street without looking both ways.
2.A man decides to marry a women he met yesterday at a strip club.
3.A hiker carrying several bottles of drinking water decides to drink out of a stagnant pool, just to be closer to nature.
4. A young boy with all the right stuff decides he wants to be an astronaut.
Alright, have you got your answers? If you are like most people you've probably answered BAD to 1-3 and GOOD to #4. These were not hypothetical situations, I was in fact talking about real people. Here's the outcomes:
1.The child was me. The busy street was Park Avenue in New York, and thanks to chance I'm still here to write this, though after a scolding from my Mother I never ran into a street again without looking both ways.
2.The man's name was Tom, the gal he married was one of my high-school sweethearts, a girl named Lisa. To my knowledge they have been happy for 12 years now and have two children.
3.The hiker was my old roommate Michael and as far as I know he suffered no ill effects from drinking out of the pool. His life took a turn for the worse soon thereafter in a car accident that cost him his job and good health. It occurred on a dark empty country road at night, due to a tire blowout. Nothing he could have done.
4.The young boy became astronaut Gus Grissom. He was the first man to fly into space more than once, though the second time was his last. He died in that fateful Apollo I mission along with Ed White and Roger Chaffee.
Now, after knowing the outcomes to these real life non-fictional events would you change your answers and:
1.Recommend to your child that they run across roads without looking both ways.
2.Marry exotic dancers you've just met yesterday.
3.Believe that is always safe to drink out of standing water found along a mountain path.
4.Believe that no one should ever become an astronaut, because it's a death sentence.
We can only hope these aren't your conclusions and that knowing the outcomes of those situations wouldn't change your thinking in any way. It's just not a good idea to run across busy streets without looking, and no amount of survivors will ever make it so, or make up for the ones that ended up as roadkill. This is the fundamental premise behind results and outcomes not justifying bad decisions. In gambling it's just a little harder to see.
Gambling Example
Imagine it's seven o'clock. You've just walked into your favorite casino. After looking around for thirty minutes to find the highest return game, you make your choice on what you'll play that day. However, you come over all peckish and decide on a nosh first. While in the coffee shop a friend of yours walks in and says, “hay what cha doin”. You tell him that you are here to play and what game you'll be on after dinner. He then asks, “Is that a good idea?”
How do you answer? (You have not played yet, you have only made your choice as to what you will play later).
Now here's your job: I want you to judge the choice you've made without knowing the outcome. Why? because this is exactly how we HAVE to make decisions everyday in all aspects of life. We never know the outcome prior to making a decision.
If you cannot answer the question, “Is that a good idea?”, without knowing how the decision pans out, then you could have mild to moderate cognitive distortion. It means you aren't judging your decisions prior to making them. You are crossing the road first and then deciding whether or not you should have looked both ways. You have to be able to answer, “Is that a good idea?” before you sit down. And here's the part that's so hard to understand, if it was a good idea, a bad outcome doesn't change anything. When you made the decision, you didn't know what the outcome would be. You made the best choice you could, given the information you had at the time. That is all we can ever do.
