As for fining parents, well, one study found that doing so actually increased the number of times they were late picking up their kids, because it changed their interpretation of the situation from, “It would be rude to be late too often” to “This is a fair exchange—I can stay at work for another 30 minutes and pay the day care center for that privilege.” It’s what’s inside people’s heads that really matters.

His mistake was one of branding, only this time time he was not branding a vodka but himself. The picture he chose to paint for his potential paramour was one of safety and neutrality. Vodka-soda-lime is the drink of someone who wants to conceal taste, like ketchup on a steak. Her response, neat bourbon, should have told him in no uncertain terms that she was in the market for a more visceral experience.

The more painful the initiation, the more likely we are to want to stick with the program. The more inspiring and metaphoric we make our stories, the less they seem to resemble the dull and comfortably literal world that the rest of us live in. We start to think that we’re different, that the laws don’t apply to us – that all we have to do is let manifest destiny take its course. This denies the fundamental role of hard work and sacrifice and luck in everything. Narration conveniently ignores the day we laid around and watched tv and the week where we were sure we were going to quit but didn’t. It’s just not honest.


Still, that is not easy either. We are wired to think a certain way – linearly, towards purpose, in terms of justification. Ambivalence, in the jungle, was death. The mind strives for congruency and lashes out violently when there isn’t any. It’s also why people wake up one day and have no idea how the world works anymore. That’s why people say things like “Do you have any idea who I am?” with a straight face.