Are our lives a testament to the hollow pyrrhic victories?

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Every day is a battle; we wake up to the shrill sound of the alarm clock, spend the day completing one task after another and go back to bed at night, once again setting up the alarm clock. The day just doesn’t seem enough and life goes by. We win accolades, garner compliments and everyday inch towards a successful tomorrow. All steps are taken to fulfill the dream of the ‘perfect tomorrow’.

As glittery as it appears, has anybody ever lived this perfect tomorrow??

If I could just get that promotion, all will be sorted. Only if I could impress the boss, I’d have better prospects. Let me improve my grades just by a bit and the admissions will be all streamlined. A slightly bigger house, with better closet space will sort it all out. Another couple of kilos gone and I’ll look perfect. One more degree to the portfolio and my practice will flourish. Let me save enough for an international trip and I’ll be happy. Only if I had enough to buy those beautiful earrings.

We all constantly con ourselves with such promises as we live. We continue to convince us that there is a recipe for the perfect life and that concocting the desired ingredients will lead to indefinite happiness. And thus we keep setting up battles for us; a new achievement, a new challenge, a new effort and all will be in place. The desire to win these battles consumes us in entirety, but the ‘perfect tomorrow’, seems to keep drifting away with every win.

Pyrrhic victory – Winning the battle || Losing the war

How is that possible? What kind of an idiot would lose after winning the battle? The king Pyrrhus of Epirus won the battle. He defeated his opponent, however alongside he also lost everybody he loved and trusted. He lost his friends and commanders who helped him win. Though victorious he was battered and was left with no will to continue the journey of life.

Why don’t we stand up to these battles? Why do we keep fighting?

Life doesn’t have to be a defeated war. We keep pushing ourselves with the idea of a better tomorrow, but in the process, we are brutally sacrificing the day that we could have lived.

Instead of cherishing what we have, we are running behind the every next goal. Instead of enjoying a sumptuous home cooked meal with kids today, we are slaving the extra hours, in hopes of a fancy hotel meal in times to come. The fear of missing out on future joys is so enormous that the simple pleasures that we can live today are being brutally sacrificed.

The urge to go on after these endless battles is like an addiction. We fight so much that the whole idea of actually enjoying the fruits of these battles seems intimidating. To ensure that the guarantees of a fulfilled tomorrow never end, we forget to live the beautiful today that we have created.

Life is precious and all we have is now. Stay for a minute and enjoy every shade it offers!!  

Twisted Pygmalion connect between expectations & reality!!

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Every aspect of life has a story behind it, the Pygmalion effect beholds one too. Back in the day, the Greek sculptor Pygmalion had once, sculpted a woman out of ivory. Absolutely in awe of what he had just created, he turned the woman from a common to a personal noun and gave her the name ‘Galatea.’ There was no denying in the fact that he was profoundly, and deeply in love with ‘it.’ Inspired by his love, Aphrodite – the goddess of Venus decided to do him a favor and brought his significant other to life.

But why are we discussing Pygmalion & his love for Galatea … what is the relevance of this Greek anecdote today??

Pygmalion was so deeply obsessed with his sculpture that he imagined that the creation was a living person. His imagination or rather his obsession was so grave that the goddess granted his wish and in effect the sculpture indeed became a living person.

If we look at the situation from an aerial view, who gave life to Galatea? The Greek goddess or the creator Pygmalion’s love??

There’s a Pygmalion in all of us … we birth our reality as per our desires!!!

How is the Pygmalion and Galatea’s story connected to us, our situations? It was Pygmalion’s expectations which, in the first place motivated him to craft such a sculpture and inspired Aphrodite to bring Galatea to life.

In simpler words, the Pygmalion effect is a psychological phenomenon wherein our expectations from a person push that person to behave in the way we desire. Thus we decide the result beforehand and work in the direction to achieve it, which eventually leads to the same result.

Expectations = Behaviour = Result as per expectation.

To understand better, consider the experiment below:

An experiment regarding this subject was held in a school in a district of Mexico. Students were separated in two groups and they were led to believe that those in group A were better in terms of their ability & skills to read and thus were intelligent. Group B was also informed about this division criterion.

This made the students believe that A group had high expectations set from their respective teachers whereas the other flock believed that they had failed to make the teachers proud. This resulted in the first group, showing better academic excellence in comparison to the other, which withered.

How can it help??

The above mentioned phenomenon has several real life implications too. It can be used by seniors to motivate their unit to complete a project by setting high standards and expectations. It can be used by parents to make sure that their children score well in their upcoming exams and furthermore, it can also be smartly and statistically used by coaches to help their players win. There are 3E’s that help create such a situation:

  1. Elect – elect candidates who are fit for such a role, candidates who will not be harmed by such a psychological deliberation.
  2. Expect – create expectations and certain standards for the people elected.
  3. Eye – observe carefully how it affects them and their results.

Pygmalion effect sounds interesting, but is it ethical? Let us consider the Mexican school – study once again. The first group definitely improved but what about the second? It compromised one entire year of their academic lifespan and destroyed their confidence.

This leads us to the discovery of the Golem effect, also called the Pygmalion fall, which states that reduced expectations lead to diminished results. Both the effects are like two sides of a coin.

The golem effect is the segment of the Pygmalion effect which causes several drawbacks. It leads to a certain stereotype threat, a situation where people belonging to certain communities feel more vulnerable to conforming to stereotypes regarding their gender, caste, and status, hampering equality and perpetuating discrimination, especially in the cases of gender. Furthermore, it has a significant role in creating insecurities between siblings who go through what is commonly called ‘favoritism.’

This brings us to the commonly asked question, “Is the Pygmalion effect self-validating?”

The effect does create a condition where the expectations set do modify the final outcome. In other words, in such an event, an individual’s expectations about another person eventually result in the other person or entity acting in ways that confirm such expectations. So ultimately, yes, it can be called self-validating.

“Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”

As for a final feedback, the Pygmalion effect may seem intriguing at some point, and may be a part of our daily life, but it needs to be controlled and used properly to make sure that there are no casualties, that is, no victims of the fall, or the Golem effect. All that glitters, after all, isn’t gold.

How to push an unmotivated child?

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Is there a simple solution to the complex puzzle??

Part I

65 marks aren’t bad mom … I’ll cleanup when I feel like and this is my room, let me be … Career? Sure I’ll do something, don’t nag me about it just yet! …I’ve been studying for half an hour already; what more do you want? … I am not fat, don’t body shame me mom. I’ll work out when I feel like and now is not the time.

If as a parent, you are able to relate with any of the mentioned remarks, then you are certainly dealing with a laidback kid. Younger ones can still be managed, but teenagers are an even tougher challenge. So how do we deal with the situation? How do we motivate children? What all practices or tools could encourage positive action and effort?

The science of motivation – it all starts at the beginning!!

Psychological research suggests that parents, guardians and mentors can motivate and promote learning. There is this whole science behind motivation that can be applied. Apparently, there are intrinsic and extrinsic drivers that enable the cause. As per research (citation source: working paper 14 Developing Child / Harvard), approach & avoidance motivation decide the response. In case of the former i.e. approach motivation, we are tempted to undertake a task if we feel that we will enjoy doing so. As for avoidance motivation, as the name suggests, we feel that it is an unwanted situation & thus react with a flight or fight response.

Sounds intelligent however what are the practical implications of these fancy terms? Is there a simpler way in which we can perhaps breakdown this scientific jargon and filter through it to an understandable solution? Let’s try and see how far we can go…

In layman’s terms!

Imagine you are 14 years old…

You have been invited to a Diwali bash at a friend’s place; your whole gang is going to be there and gossip about the fancy party is already buzzing on your phone. On the same fateful day however, an uncle too has planned a family dinner. This uncle is a really close relative and the older members of the clan really bit too well. He has kids your age and your parents seem awfully excited about the plan. Again imagine yourself in this hypothetical situation. For a few moments, do not think like a parent. Let the teenager in you overpower and analyze the factors that would decide the succeeding course of action.

If we breakdown the situation and attempt a correlation with approach & avoidance motivational drivers, quite naturally the kid would be tempted to make as many excuses to avoid the family get together. Conversations and behaviors over the next few days would be driven by excuses to drop out of the tasks related to the family event. As a parent, with limited knowledge of the upcoming Diwali bash at friend’s place, it all will appear as an attitude problem. But the underlying cause here is the overpowering avoidance mechanism, which is inciting the flight response.

To be continued…