If you heard on the weather report saying that it’s going to rain today and you carry a huge, heavy umbrella wherever you go, given that you don’t like rain, would you hope that it will rain? Would you want something bad to happen because you have prepared for it?
Chances are, you do. You wouldn’t want to bring an umbrella for no reason. You’d rather let reality happen as you expected and prepared for even if the reality is ugly.
It’s interesting how we have to justify our actions to keep ourselves content. Logically, there is absolutely no reason why we would want it to rain (unless you like rain), and bringing an umbrella shouldn’t change how we think either.
Since we think logically, our behaviours, a result of our thinking, should be consistant with our thoughts. But since we can’t change what we have done already, we’ll have to change our thinking to prevent any discrepancy between the two.
This seems like a really unncessary approach to making ourselves happy. It doesn’t help us at all, really. Wouldn’t it be efficient to think and do what we want and need without worrying about how we will think of ourselves for doing that?
I know exactly what you mean. I just purchased insurance life on my house. My wife is already taking a stronger interest in my health.
I think that almost (or does) fall onto self-image, self-esteem and one’s place in social groups. As tangent as that might sound, I think that (specific to the rain/umbrella example) one might hope it would rain after one went through the trouble of lugging the umbrella around in order to feel a sort of self efficiency…basically like you said…satisfaction, but also extending to the “group” level. I don’t want to be the sucker in shorts and a Tshirt when it turns out to be a cold day. Beside the fact that I’m cold, I stand out, negatively, in some sort of unspoken observation made by everyone in the group, including myself.
In a more group-oriented example, I’d rather wish that school started 30 minutes earlier today rather than wrongly think it did and show up and display my misjudgement, my mistake, my screw up, to everyone present.
I guess that says something about me…
Joey you are right. Social belonging is part of everyone’s needs. I guess it does say something about you since you have noticed it explicitly. ;)
I think another reason could be that if I bring the umbrella outside when it is raining I would have an advantage over other people. However, if it is not raining, then I would be at a disadvantage since I will be wasting energy carrying something that I don’t need.