Today in class we talked about the characteristics and importance of the Rider and the Elephant in the first chapter of The Happiness Hypothesis. Some traits of each include:
With the Rider: He is the conscious side and the thinker. He tends to plan ahead and weigh all of the options. He uses logic, evidence, and reason to come to the best conclusion.
With the Elephant: It is mostly unconscious and reacts to stimuli. It relies on instinct and intuition. It uses emotions to come to conclusions, but they aren't always the best.
When the two of these work together everything will turn out as good as possible, but it is not always the case for things to work so well. In most cases the emotions side will be more powerful and take over what is rational, hence the elephants size.
An example of this would be wanting to go out to party when you know you have a test the next day. It might work a few times to hold yourself back and say "no" but each time that happens you are wearing the strength to deny partying down and the urge to go is getting stronger, so you end up going.
Not resisting can lead to not so good outcomes, so before you go ahead and act on your emotions think of the consequences.
What are some ways to make it easier to do the better thing and resist temptation? What do you all think?
ReplyDeleteI think something that we even talked about in class some is not surrounding yourself with the things that temp you. This is not always as easy if say you went to a gathering and the host had a certain food that you were trying to not eat. Although, I believe if you have a good enough and loyal friend you could ask them to hold you accountable and make sure you don't do the things that temp you.
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