Perdictably Irrational

I read Perdictably Irrational by Dan Ariely and I learned how the people in the United States have an almost inconceivably out of control spend now save later attitude. One of the theories on why we do this is that we are taught throughout childhood and though our school careers to always do as the people with authoritative voice. So once we are out on our own we have this ingrained reaction to authoritative voices such as those in commercials telling us to buy, right now, all this junk we don’t need .

I also read about procrastination on how in an experiment kids in three different classes were all given the same three assignments the difference is they had different due dates. One class was given the choice to set their own due dates as long as it was in by the last day of the semester but they could only set it once and if they were late then they would be docked points. Another class was given the same option but that there would be no penalties as long as they were in by the last day. The last class were given three set dates to turn in their papers. Now you may think that the kids in the second class would get the best scores on their papers but you’d be wrong the kids in the third class got the best average scores. The reason for this is thought to be that since we have always had the due dates given to us and since they had all that time the kids in the other two classes procrastinated till they were rushing to finish and so did not do as good of a job on their papers.

I have a problem with procrastinating too much. If I have a big project to do I will start out doing it right away but then I will realize that I have other homework to do that is do the next day and I will gradually start working less and less on the project till the due date is upon me and I only have ¾ of it done. There is plenty of procrastination in the books I’ve read even the “heroes” have problems with it. In the book The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks the main character Azoth is an orphan boy from the Warrens (slums, a part of the city for the extremely poor) who is given a chance to become the apprentice to the best wetboy in the city Durzo Blint, but Durzo has one condition Azoth must kill Rat a boy who is in charge of Azoth's guild (they are called guild rats bands of poor kids that stay together for safety). Azoth accepts Durzo's offer he starts to gather support from other boys in the guild so he would have enough power to over throw Rat. But Azoth procrastinated and because of that procrastination his closest friend Doll Girl had her face cut up. While Azoth wept over Doll Girl's body Durzo came and said if he went right then and killed Rat he would save her. If Azoth had just killed Rat right away then Doll Girl would never have gotten hurt.