Month: February 2016

It’s not liking, it’s familiarity

I’m sure we can all imagine a time when someone made a recommendation for a place to eat that we felt repulsed by. “You know I don’t like that place, I hate Chinese food, how about….” Of course it’s not just food, we all express preferences in many aspects of life. We have our favorite grocery store. We have our…

Constraints can be your best friend

If you feel overwhelmed with options when making a decision, sometimes adding a constraint is the best way to make a worthwhile decision. For example, this weekend I was looking for brunch ideas here in NYC. As you can imagine it can be quite frustrating sifting through hundreds, if not thousands, of possibilities. So, I asked myself where would I…

Assume the best or the worst?

Often our view of reality is wrong, born out of the inevitable ignorance of not having enough information to form a realistic view. For example, if someone provides a word of caution: the stairs are slippery, hold onto the rail on the way down. When we hear this we may be inclined to feel as if we’re being treated like…