Jin's Thoughts

Dear Emmy:

It has been exactly one year. Last year this time, you caught us by surprise: your deadline-driven-dad could hardly believe that you would arrive two weeks ahead of schedule: he was even scrambling with a referee report in the hospital several hours before you were born.

In the past year, you have given us not just surprises, you have filled our hearts with so much oversized emotions: we cheered when you gained weight; we shivered when the nurse took your blood; we celebrated when you finally pooped after a seven-day draught. :)

But mostly, you have given us joy: boundless, endless, joy. In the morning, my face glows at the warm feeling of snuggling you. In the afternoon, my steps to home quicken at the prospect of seeing you. Late at night, my fatigue runs away at the thought of your heavenly smile.

Thank you, Emmy. You have given us so much.

Happy Birthday, Emmy. I hope you will be happy, healthy, and enjoy everyday of your life.

there are four points on the plane. if any three points (of the four) can be covered by a unit disk, then all four points can be covered by a unit disk. 

New reports from my reading of the Happiness book by Haidt: the happiness formula

 

H: level of happiness

S: biological set point

V: voluntary activities we carry out

C: conditions of life

 

S: Believe or not, we are not all born equal. Some people are just happier by genes.  There's nothing we can do about S; our parents give it to us.

 

V:  There are two types of activities that make us happy. The first type includes (almost) brainless activities like eat good food and have sex, that just feel good. The happiness brought by these activities is usually called pleasure. Pleasure makes us happy, but typically only temporarily. Moreover, the unconscious part of our brain often leads us to have too much pleasure at a time, and this can lead to disgust (think about over-eating).  To me, pleasure entail activities that are great for the short run but suck for the long run.

 

The second type includes activities like playing sports, learning new things, or solving a puzzle that interest us and challenge us at the right level. The happiness brought by these activities is called gratification by some psychologists. Unlike pure pleasure, gratification leads us to more long-lasting happiness, and the side effects of gratification seem to be mild if there are any. In general, gratification are great both for the short run and the long run.

 

I think the distinction between pleasure and gratification is important and perhaps not well known enough. Max Weber, for example, points out the spirit of capitalism is "hard work and the delay of gratification." Apparently, he should use the word pleasure instead. Perhaps Weber thinks of hard work are miserable activities whose only purpose (for a long time) is for the Glory of God. But in many cases, I believe, hard work is gratifying, especially when the work required matches one's talent.  I certainly couldn't distinguish pleasure from gratification before i read the happiness book. But I did collect one fortune cookie slip (the only one or two i still have), which say "happiness is not pleasure, it's victory."

 

C reflects how large one's house, how pretty one's spouse is and other material goodies. These material well-beings are probably what we typically have in mind when we talk about  "what a good life is made of."

 

Unfortunately, we adapt to most things in C fairly quickly, so in a sense spending time and effort to pursue for "what a good life is made of" is somewhat misguided. A large house gets us happy, but only for a while, and then it is taken for granted. People adapt quickly, and this adaptation principle explains, for example, why lottery winners are not nearly as happy as one would imagine.

 

There are some things, however, which we don't seem to adapt very well, and these are the things we should keep in mind when we make choices. First, we don't adapt well to noise, so choosing a quiet house is perhaps a good idea. Second, we don't adapt well to commuting, so choosing a nearby but somewhat smaller house is perhaps preferable to having a large but far away one. Third, plastic surgery helps! Although attractive people aren't happier on average than the unattratctive ones, those who become more attractive through plastic surgery do. (Sadly or fortunately?, this effect is most pronounced in people who have breast surgery).  Fourth, we do not adapt to relationships. Good roommates, officemates, and significant others really help!  These perhaps are the things we should strive for!

 

Finally, if one has lots of free time, try visit www.authentichappiness.org and also google Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches the most popular class at Harvard.

The Happiness hypothesis book is so good (or is revising my thesis so boring?) that I am constantly writing my blog on it.

 

According to the book, our decisions, even some major ones, can be based on unconscious reactions to trivial cues. For example, when a person called Dennis decides what to do for a career, he considers lawyer, doctor, and dentist, dentist, and dentist... Similarity in names can in this way influence our career choices. The same thing holds true for marriage. How often do couples have similar names  or at least similar initials? Jienan and I both start with J, and a couple we know well both start with H. Although the casual empiricism maybe subject to availability bias (we think something is more likely to happen if we can find ready examples), my guess is that this pattern also holds statistical analysis.

 

Of course, I wonder how such hypothesis applies to the chinese population. Are the two-letter ones more likely to marry two-letter ones? Or does it also operate through the phonetics? It will be an interesting research question in my opinion.

 

So the bottom line? If you want ur son to be a lawyer, name him Lawrence. 

The happiness hypothesis book by Haidt is a very informative and interesting book. I highly recommend it.

 

While reading it this morning, I was intrigued by one study mentioned in the book. The study is an experiment on a bunch of 4-year-olds and basically runs as the following. The experimenter shows one candy (marshmellow?) on the table to the kid and tells him/her that he can have the candy immediately if he wants. But if he's willing to wait, the experimenter can leave the room and get another candy for him, but this might take a while. While the experimenter is away from the room, the kid can ring a bell (also on the table) and then eat the candy if he cannot wait. But in this case, the kid can no longer have the second candy.

 

Not surprisingly, most kids ask for the 2nd candy. And not surprisinly, many kids cannot resist the temptation of the candy on the table and rang the bell before the experimenter returns (which i think i about 20 minutes long).  But what's interesting is that the experimenter revisit the kids 20 years later and linked their results in this experiment with other measures of their performance in life. It is found out that kids who can wait longer for the candy (who better resists the temptation) also have better test scores (SAT), attend better colleges, and have better outcomes in many other dimensions. When kids who can wait longer are asked how they can resist the temptation, the most standard answer is that they try to distract their attention away from the candy by thinking about some other interesting things.

 

I find this study really fasinating. And my lesson from this is 1) being able to resist temptation/delay gratification is a good trait; 2) one effective way to resist one (readily available) temptation is to think of something else that is interesting, exciting, but not readily available.  

 

 

I always wonder whether there are mechanical ways to make writings more efficient.

While revising my thesis today, it dawns on me that this is the format I should (almost) always follow. For every concept/lemma/theorem, we first describe it, then explain it, and after formally stating/proving it, we comment on it.

Do we feel that "dumber" people are more also more stubborn? This paper below gives one anwer to why this is so.

 

 

This paper should have interesting applications about designs of organizations and internal labor market.

 

One extra thought that I had after reading is that asymmetric info of the firm and the associated risk sharing may help explain why firms are not more likely to fire workers during a recession.