so, you know when your brain decides it’s time for a deep-dive analysis of literally everything you’ve done wrong in your life? yeah, that was me today. i woke up smack in the middle of retrospective bias (where you look back at something and twist it into being more negative than it actually was). like, i found myself cringing over a presentation from THREE YEARS AGO where i flubbed one sentence. nobody else remembers it, but my brain was like, “oh, hey, remember this? time to feel mortified for no reason.” thanks, brain. you’re really the gift that keeps on giving.
and the audacity continued when catastrophizing (blowing a small thing out of proportion and assuming the worst) made its grand entrance. so my boss sent me a “can we talk later?” email, and naturally, i spent the whole morning convinced i was about to get fired, or worse, have to lead a meeting. turns out, it was about scheduling a holiday party. an actual party. but did that stop my anxiety from spiraling into full-on doomsday prep mode beforehand? nope. classic me.
oh! and then i caught myself doing this ridiculous sunk cost fallacy bit. it’s when you stick with something just because you’ve already invested a lot of time, money, or effort into it. so here’s the scenario—i’m halfway through this abysmal book that i started weeks ago, and it’s SO boring. like, borderline painful. but instead of quitting like a sane person, guess who said, “well, i’ve already read 200 pages, might as well power through.” spoiler alert—it did NOT get better. i could’ve been reading something fun, but no, self-inflicted suffering it is.
also, actor-observer bias really took me on one today (that’s when you blame your circumstances for your behavior but think other people’s actions are because of who they are). so, at lunch, i was running late and cut into a line. obviously, i had a very valid excuse in my head—“uh, i’m so busy, i can’t wait.” then later, someone cut ME off in the parking lot, and immediately, i’m like, “wow, rude much!” as if i wasn’t just the parking lot version of that person two hours earlier. honestly, the hypocrisy is REAL.
i had a planning fallacy moment too (where you underestimate how long something will take). i thought i could clean my entire apartment before my dinner plans, because clearly, my optimism was off the charts. spoiler—dinner started, and i was still mid-laundry with a tornado of stuff on every surface. like, why do i think i’m superhuman every time i make a to-do list? “oh, cleaning will only take 30 minutes!” lies. it’ll always take 30 minutes PLUS an hour of me getting distracted by old photos and ancient receipts.
and then we had illusory superiority making its cheeky appearance (when you believe you’re better than average at something). so, my friend suggested we go to one of those paint-and-sip classes, and guess what came out of my mouth? “i’m really good at art.” NEWSFLASH—I am not. i got there, tried to recreate a sunflower, and ended up with something that looked vaguely like… a pastry? maybe? but you know what? i called it abstract and carried on. my glass of wine did all the heavy artistic lifting at that point.
oh, and optimism bias was alive and well in my theater of chaos today. this part of my brain decided it was perfectly okay to leave my gas tank on E, waving it off with, “i’ll totally make it to the station tomorrow morning, no sweat.” fast forward to me in bumper-to-bumper traffic, sweating bullets, praying i wouldn’t have to push my car. spoiler—i made it (barely). still, maybe don’t gamble with fuel levels, future me? just a suggestion.
anyway, can we take a moment to marvel at how annoying hindsight bias is? i was talking with a friend about a movie twist that shocked me, and they hit me with the classic, “wasn’t it obvious? i totally saw that coming.” and suddenly, i was like, “oh yeah, me too!” as if i wasn’t sitting there two nights ago gasping at the reveal like my brain was in slow-motion. why is pretending you knew all along so tempting? it’s such a pointless lie, but past me would NOT have seen it coming. total fraud moment.
oh, and the cherry on top—time discounting bias bullied me into eating cake after dinner. again. it’s when you prioritize now over later—like eating chocolate lava cake now sounds WAY better than caring about future me’s fitness goals. future me (and probably my jeans) are officially on their own.
so yeah, that’s the circus my brain decided to run today. but, you know what? i think giving all this chaos names and science-y explanations kind of helps me see how humorously predictable it all is. at least i know it’s normal. mostly. anyway, thanks for being my therapist-on-paper, diary. time to laugh at myself and move on until my biases spotlight themselves all over again tomorrow. cheers to the mess!
