I was just randomly browsing around and stumbled across this baffling article during lunch break.
http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/ideas/bill-ridgers/how-and-when-make-a-decision
Click the link and have a read of the original article itself.
I would have roared right there and then when reading the article at my office desk if not because my mouth was full of tuna. Funny or not, I refused to have my desk littered with remnants of tuna spewed from my mouth as a result of laughing too hard.
Anyhow, returning to the topic at hand, I find it quite hard to believe that rational decision-making is being influenced by something so trivial, so mundane primal need as the need to urinate.
Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Kublai Khan, Churchill, Einstein – these are big names known and lived throughout ageless history – known to be among many of well-known rational leaders. Their decisions, though regarded as ridiculous then, were what that changed mankind’s history, shaped and molded it to what it has become today. It’s absolutely absurd to even imagine that the whole significance of mankind and the development of civilization in the last few centuries were riding on the full bladder of respected leaders?
Nevertheless, it was just an experiment using the above as a measurable variable. The ground hypothesis doesn’t change. What I came to understand of this ‘ego depletion’ is using up your self-confidence. In simpler words, you’ll burn yourself out and will not be able to make good decisions if you constantly drive yourself up the wall with worry.
Imagine that each person charges up every night for a fixed number of hours of energy needed in the morning. During the day, you use that reserve built up to handle a capacity to worry. However, the more you burn, the less stress-absorbing capacity you have. If less is a burned everyday, you will have more reserves. The more reserves you have, the better decisions you make. Having a full bladder, in a sense, is like that ‘reserve’.
Wokay, that’s as far as I can type, cuz the screen is starting to swoon right before my eyes, so that signals my bedtime. Ciao.
P.s. I think you can tell very well that I was downright bored, to be able to have experienced the above thought process on such a topic in 30 minutes.
