The Fact That We Often

In Short, We Derive Support For Our Preferred Conclusions By Listening To The Words That We Put In The Mouths Of People Who Have Already Been Preselected For Their Willingness To Say What We Want To Hear.

Why Isn’t It Fun To Watch A Videotape Of Last Night’s Football Game Even When We Don’t Know Who Won? Because The Fact That The Game Has Already Been Played Precludes The Possibility That Our Cheering Will Somehow Penetrate The Television, Travel Through The Cable System, Find Its Way To The Stadium, And Influence The Trajectory Of The Ball As It Hurtles Toward The Goalposts!

Impact Is Rewarding. Mattering Makes Us Happy.

Your Mistake Was Not In Imagining Things You Could Not Know—that Is, After All, What Imagination Is For. Rather, Your Mistake Was In Unthinkingly Treating What You Imagined As Though It Were An Accurate Representation Of The Facts.

Psychologists Call This Habituation, Economists Call It Declining Marginal Utility, And The Rest Of Us Call It Marriage.