Thursday, January 31, 2013
The Power of Predictions
Has there ever been a time in your life when someone told you that something improbable would happen and it did? Did the fact that the event was "predicted" cause you to behave differently than you would have otherwise and make it more likely for the event to occur? Or did the event simply seem to occur without any assistance from you? Recall what happened and include your feelings when you heard the event predicted and when it occurred.
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Last weekend, my dance school had its yearly dance competition for all dancers in the Atlanta area. My main goal was to win in at least one dance to move up a level in that dance. One of my friends and I had practiced very hard in advance to the competition, and both really wanted to win. Luckily we are in different age groups so both of us can win if we compete in the same competition. After learning I had won a first and she had won 2 firsts, we had one competition left. I remember being very jealous of her winning 2 firsts, I felt like I had done a good job in that dance but ended up not even placing while she won. Right before I went on stage, she told me that since I had done this dance at Regionals, and looked really strong in practice, that I would probably win it. I automatically felt like there was no way I could ever place in this dance because it was my worst dance. I remember standing on stage waiting to dance: watching the other competitors, going through my steps, and telling myself not to forget everything I practiced for. Having my friend tell me that she believed there was a strong chance that I would win, did give me some encouragement to do well, but at the same time did not change how I acted. I was still very nervous and thought that there was no chance I would cleanly finish the dance. After I danced and checked the score. I learned I did in fact win first. At first I felt as if there must have been a mistake with the tallying of the scores. I told myself that I definitely was not that strong of a dancer. Then, I felt a rush of joy and a giant smile came across my face when I finally realized that my friend was right.
ReplyDeleteOne dreadful Saturday, several years ago, my mother decided to drag my brothers and I out with her to go shopping. After making several trips to a variety of stores, my mother concluded it was time to return home for the day. I never wanted to visit another Macy’s, Target, Container Store, Publix or Shoe store again. By the time we pilled into the car for the last time, my brothers and I were annoyed, fidgety, exhausted and overall bored to death with being carted around from place to place all day long. My mother told us that if we stopped complaining and whining she may get us ice cream. The chances of this happening were very slim since she had to go home and make dinner, then work from home. We decided to be on our best behavior, and for the first time since we got in the car it was completely silent. An hour later at yet another store we were even less convinced that we were getting ice cream. Then a change of plans happened, our mom made one last stop before we turned onto the highway. As we pulled into Bruster’s parking lot, the red and white awning gleaming with florescent light, I remember being overjoyed because we were about to enjoy ice cream before dinner.
ReplyDeleteLast spring, just hours before walking into a hypnotism show in Gatlinburg, Tennessee -- an already mind-alteringly strange town -- I was told, by my friend, two things: First, that I would get up on stage, and second, that hypnotism wouldn't work on me, and I would be forced to fake the whole experience. These were both very unlikely outcomes. I had no intentions of volunteering to be made a fool onstage in front of hundreds of people, and even if I had, the hypnotist would be able to tell whether or not my mind was conducive to his "powers of persuasion." He wouldn't let me on stage if I couldn't be sufficiently hypnotized. Hours later, with these comforting thoughts in my head, I sat, back straight, beside six other sorry souls, the eyes of at least a hundred glued to our faces. I wasn't sure what had made me raise my hand when he asked for volunteers, I choked the whole thing up to a resolution to be more outgoing, and as "Jon Dee, Hypnotist" began to work his magic, I congratulated myself for being a spur-of-the-moment kind of person. Little did I know, this was not due to my stunning personality at all, because this was not the first time that day I had been hypnotized. At its core, hypnotism is just the power of suggestion and prediction, many people posses it, including my maliciously insightful friend. It is one thing to stand on a chair and rap in chinese while in a trance. It is another thing entirely when you're completely lucid.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, my life typically involves defying predictions rather than fulfilling them. This can be aggravating at times, especially when someone says, "I guarantee you will win." Whenever that happens, I always fail. This "backwards luck" has been useful though. In 7th grade, I made an aged-looking mask in art class. The theme was supposed to be a rounded and curvy monster mask, but I didn't like how mine was turning out. I started again, this time making a warrior-looking figure. My art teacher didn't like it, claiming that it wasn't a monster and it wasn't rounded (the mask had two sharp horns on the helmet). I continued anyway, and was somewhat proud in the end. It wasn't particularly impressive, but I liked it.
ReplyDeleteLater in the year, the high school art teacher was looking for pieces to showcase at a tri-county art competition. I was dumbfounded when he told me he wanted to showcase my mask in the competition. I decided to let him show the mask, but I wasn't very hopeful. If my art teacher didn't like it, why would the judges think differently? However, even after doubting my artwork and remembering my teacher's criticism, I won 1st place for the 7th grade division. In fact, I even got to show my artwork in the state competition (the artwork at the state competition was ridiculously impressive, so I didn't receive an award there). That event started my reverse-prediction luck: when someone says I'm going to fail, I always do better.
Being from Ann Arbor, I am a avid Michigan Wolverines fan. Last year, they were invited to the NCAA tournament for mens basketball. As a high-seed, the Wolverines would nly be playing lowly Ohio University in the first round. Many of my friends are not Michigan fans (who is in Georgia) so when I kept talking about the game to them, they always said that Michigan would lose. Now, if I hadn't heard that, I definitely would have watched the game differently. Michigan did actually end up losing the game. It was a huge upset and everyone couldn't believe it. However, ever since the people around me had said Michigan would lose, I started to believe them. So, when the Wolverines lost, I wasn't as shocked as I would have been. I felt like I had known that they would lose the whole game.
ReplyDeleteIn my den sits an impossibly old clock. It has been around for about 200 years, if I am to believe my mother, and it sat in my great-grandparents' den when my mom was a child, my grandparents' when she grew older, and now it belongs to us. It has not worked for the entirety of that time. My friend came over one day and announced that our clock was broken. "Yes", I told her, I was "well aware my clock was broken". She then announced that she could fix it. Furthermore, she could fix it in ten minutes. Doubtful about her messing with an antique, I forbade her from attempting to fix it. But I admit, for some reason I was curious to see if she could get the clock working. I had no emotional attachment with the clock, and seldom noticed it before, so I realized I didn't actually care if she fixed it or not. I left the room with some sort of excuse, knowing that the stubborn personality of my friend would make fiddling with the clock impossible to resist. When I returned ten minutes later, the clock was working. To this day I have no idea how she did it. Maybe it was magic, maybe she googled how to fix two hundred year old clocks, or perhaps in a past life she lived in the eighteenth century and fixed clocks for a living. Perhaps this was a dream, and I quickly pinched myself and realized it wasn't. But the look on my mother's face when she walked in made me sure I had made the right decision in trusting my friend's strange declaration.
ReplyDeleteI have always wanted a dog, and I've always made that very clear to my parents. They still to this day refuse to get a dog. Anyways, a while back I was expressing how much I would like a dog and they were saying no and one of them was joking and said "Maybe if a dog shows up at our doorstep without a home, we can keep it." At the time, I thought nothing of it and the comment just made me realize how little the chances of us getting a dog were. Then last summer, I was walking with my friend and her dog in our neighborhood and on our walk, we saw what looked like a pit bull mix roaming around in the street. The dog came over with her tail wagging and followed us the rest of the way. That was the dog who followed me home and ended up on my doorstep, which I think is crazy. At the time, I didn't remember the comment that my parents had said, because I was too excited that I could possibly ACTUALLY have a dog. My actions after the comment (I don't think) didn't make a difference on whether the dog followed me home. **Side note: We fostered that dog for half a year then found an owner... because my parents really don't want to have a dog.
ReplyDeleteLast summer, I become infatuated with Frank Ocean's album , Channel Orange.
ReplyDeleteThe cool rhythmic undertones combined with an electrifying voice was so addictive. Unlike many other albums , Channel Orange had a very diverse arrangement. Hence, I could listen to it without skipping a song. After nights of wishful thinking , I asked my mom could she buy Channel Orange for me. She agreed .But I knew that between work and busy summers I shouldn't expect to get the CD because the higher the hopes you have , the harder they fall if they aren't fulfilled. The fact that the event was "predicted" didn't cause me to behave differently at all because of the mentality I had about hoping for things during that time ,and because I wasn't hoping to get the CD afterwards I didn't affect whether I received the CD or not. A few days after my mom agreed to buy me the CD , she inconspicuously gave me a grocery bag not disclosing what was inside of it , and there it was : Channel Orange. When I opened the bag , I saw golden light beam onto my anointed CD from the heavens while hearing angels sing in the background. It was a summer miracle.
One night last year, I had a lot of homework and it took me a long time to finish it. Now I know that the amount then actually wasn't that much, however, I still went to bed quite late. I was so exhausted, but felt satisfied that I had finished everything. The next day, someone reminded me that we had a math test that day. It was a very long, full chapter that I had not studied for at all, and I started to dread the upcoming math period and my life. I tried cramming, but overall it was unsuccessful, because it just made me confused and I didn't feel any readier than before. When expressing my concern to my math teacher, she told me I would be absolutely fine. I nodded in a noncommital way and sat down to take my test. Later, I found out that I got an A and was extremely happy. Now I realize that this might've been just because it was an easy chapter and I remembered everything, but I've always written it off as being very lucky.
ReplyDeleteAs far I can recall, nothing like this has happened to me. I feel that being told that something will happen does change your thinking afterwards. It may make you feel more confident in your own prediction or make you feel less confident depending on the prediction. Or it may open your mind to a new possibility that could happen and start you thinking about that possibility. All actions happen because of thoughts and so the prediction most certainly would affect your actions, even if it was in a very small way. Currently, I am reading a science fiction book that bases it's plot around one very large prediction, the fall of an empire. After this prediction is made, it's maker makes preparations to shorten the period of barbarity that would follow. However, he makes sure that the method of which anybody could use to find out how the empire would fall and what large events would follow is lost. He does this because if someone found out about the exact nature of the prediction, they could try to change something. This would create a different situation that his preparations would be unable to properly deal with. This relates in the way that the knowledge of a prediction would change someone's behavior, like how someone would do something they wouldn't do normally just to prove another person wrong.
ReplyDeleteAbout 10 years ago, my Mom, Brother and Dad were all at our local grocery store in Michigan. My Mom thought it would be fun to buy some lottery tickets. She bought one for each of us, warning us we weren't going to win anything and not to be sad if we didn't. I had very high expectations that I would win the jackpot of one hundred million, planning what I would do with the money. I picked my numbers strategically, thinking of my favorite numbers, and picking the number two for the last, and most important number. We drove home, and I waited for friday, when they would draw the winning numbers. That saturday, I woke up and ran to my Mom so she could check the numbers. We read through them while checking our tickets, nope, nope, nope until we got to the last number. 2. The last number was 2. I won $2 from the Mega Millions Lottery.
ReplyDeleteOn my 14th birthday, not even a year ago, I woke up just to find a guitar leaning on my bedroom door. I opened the package and went to my parents' room to thank them for it, but I told them that I would never learn to play guitar. Then they gave me a little inspirational talk, because of course, that's what parents do. My dad explained to me how he was in a band when he was a teen. He told me that one day, I would be in a band. To me, that was absolutely impossible because I had never even touched a guitar. @012 went on, and I started putting effort into practicing my guitar. I knew that I had to make my dad proud. I finally decided to start a band with some of my friends, and to this day, my band is doing well. We are all beginners, but we're trying our best. If it wasn't for my dad's prediction that I would learn to play guitar, I would still not know how to play a guitar, but thanks to his advice, I even had the guts to start a band, and now, I plan on getting far with it.
ReplyDeleteLast spring break, I went to Disney World with my friend and her dad. In order to catch the bus to Orlando, we had to get up at 4 am and leave by 5 am in order to catch the 6 am bus. However, her dad didn't think that we would make it, so he didn't bother buying tickets in advance, worried that if he did and we missed it he'd have to pay twice as much. We did in fact get there a bit late, but had we bought our tickets earlier, we wouldn't have had to stand in line to buy them and could have been just in time to get on the bus! Unfortunately, our conviction that we would miss it entirely lead us to do so, since 5 minutes simply isn't enough time to drive back and forth around Atlanta. We continued to make mistakes like that for the rest of the morning; the second bus was sold out, Marta was slow, and the car rental place was slower. Finding a place to park took longer than all of those things combined. After several hours of this torture, we finally rented a car and got on the road. On our way there, her dad mentioned self fulfilling prophecies, essentially saying that we'd jinxed ourselves. I very much wish we hadn't.
ReplyDeleteI've never made some huge prediction and had it come true (or not come true). But something I do all the time is predict the end of a book while I'm reading. It's actually really fun to do, because if you are right, it helps you see the overarching plot stories. If you are wrong, then you get to be surprised by what happens! Sometimes you realize things before the characters do, which helps you to know what's going to happen. Last year, we started our lit book, Unwind. After about two days, when we had barely gotten to the third chapter, someone in our class made a prediction. We had just been introduced to the main girl and main boy in the story, and the person said "I'm telling you, they're going to end up together by the end." No one agreed or disagreed, but as we kept on reading, it was obvious that that person was right. It's always fun to have a prediction come true (as long as it's a good one)!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the word "prediction," I almost immediately think of sports predictions. Who is going to win what and how, etc. No fortune cookie has ever told me I was going to do something and it happened. Every now and then advertisements tell me there are single Philippine women in my area, but I've never seen any of them. The only real times I've been shocked at predictions is when someone, usually a friend or someone, predicts that one person or team is going to win an event despite being the underdog, and they did. The one that pops into my head is the UFC fight between Chael Sonnen and Anderson Silva. To add some background, for as long as I can remember, Anderson Silva has been the Middleweight Champion of the world, and not just the champion, but the obliterator of all who fight him. This man takes professional, elite level fighters and makes them look like they have no idea whats going on. Then one day this guy Chael is going to fight him, no really big wins to hit name, and my friend tells me Chael is the guy to beat Silva, the champion of ~7 years who has never even come close to a loss. During the fight, Chael lands 320 punches on the champion, more than Silva had taken in his entire career, and pretty much sits on his chest punching him for 23 minutes. Two minutes left in the fight, Anderson Silva pulls a hail mary of a triangle armbar (hard to explain what it is in words), and defeats Chael. While Chael may have lost, it is still referred to as the biggest "underdog win" in the sport.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the long post heres some cliffs:
-Champion fight vs a nobody
-friend predicts nobody wins
-nobody dominates for 4 and a half rounds
-nobody gets choked out
-still is ridiculous
So one time I was dragged to my brother's baseball practice and my mom asks what I want for diner. I say mexican food as she says fine but we should get James to hurry up if we want to be the crowd. When he finishes practice I go over to the dugout and help him pack because I was hungry and I wanted to be seated quickly. So we leave the baseball fields and go over to the restaurant. When we get inside there were quite a few people around us and I was pretty sure we were going to have to wait. Thankfully we didn't have to wait t all which I was quite surprised about. My feelings right when I walked in the door and saw all the peopel around was disappointment because I was really hungry and this would just add to the wait time. When we got to the front of the line and immediately got seated was mainly surprise but also happiness because I would be eating soon and I am not really a patient person.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever wanted something so bad that you knew that you would get it? This happened to me recently when I was applying to Paideia. From the beginning of applying to high schools, I knew I wanted to go to Paideia. To me, there was no other school in close contention. The process of applying was hard and stressful. I had to fill out all of the applications to schools, while continuing with my normal homework. Once I finally wrote all the essays the true hardest part came; the waiting. During the months of waiting for results, I spent everyday visualizing myself at Paideia. After A while, I truly couldn’t imagine myself at any other high school. I wanted it so bad that I felt like I willed it to happen. Even though I know my will had no effect there is still a part of me that thinks if you want something bad enough you can will it to happen.
ReplyDeleteEarlier in this evening, my mother picked me up from soccer practice and we headed home. Upon arrival, I immediately began my homework at the table as I ate a random combination of leftovers from the night before, including roast chicken and green beans. As I began to complete my homework, I found myself challenged by the question on the blog. What has happened to me that was both predicted and improbable? As I struggled, my mom predicted I would spend a long, long time, maybe too much time, both coming up with ideas and working on the assignment. I hoped to defy this slightly improbable prediction, but I continued my search for the perfect idea. Perfection, being nearly impossible to find, was not coming to me. I began to over think the assignment as a whole, making things very difficult for myself. The numbers on my watch changed at what seemed to be an increasingly rapid pace and I was getting nowhere. Despair began to set in. As I continued to be stumped by the simple blog question, my mother’s prediction began to come true. My mother’s prediction didn’t directly affect the outcome of this event, but it did give me a drive to simply start writing in the end and get the task done. The lesson to be learned here is though we would all would love to enjoy the benefits of infinite time, we have to remember that our time is limited and it’s important to divide it wisely.
ReplyDeleteOne time, a few years ago, my friend and I decided to test out the Bloody Mary story. The story is that if you go into a bathroom, lock the door, and turn of the lights and then say "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary," when you turn around in the mirror you will see the ghost of "Bloody Mary." When you exit the bathroom, you are also supposed to have some sort of unexplained scratch somewhere. My friend was convinced that these events would occur sequentially and I, to prove that my skepticism was founded, decided to prove her wrong. I, myself, was nervous and unsure, but I was just beginning to find myself and I had decided to be stubborn and to live by the principle of "If you don't see it, don't believe it." My mom had actually told me that ever since I was even younger and I strongly did not believe in ghosts, I was, in my mind, too mature for that. I proceeded into the downstairs bathroom and I closed and locked the door and turned off the lights. Repeating "Bloody Mary" three times aloud in a muffled whisper, I peaked into the mirror. I may have been hallucinating and seeing something that wasn't there, but I would have sworn that the eerie ghost like colors started to appear in the mirror. Then, afraid out of my mind, I fumbled with the door lock and, after opening the door, ran full speed out of the bathroom and down the hallway. My friend was too scared to try it herself and I did, true to the story, find a small scratch on my toe shortly after the event. Now I question what I may have seen, but I know that I will never take the chance again as now I am more hesitant to rule out anything I haven't seen from existence.
ReplyDeleteMy life is full of improbable incidents, it happened even before I was born, my dad got divorced on December 1st and married my mom on December 2nd, I was born on December 18th in Minnesota and we moved to Japan on December 28th. All these happened in December 1997. When we moved to Nigata, Japan when I was two weeks old, my parents planned to live there for the rest of our lives. But in the third year my dad got an offer from the University of Tokyo and we moved to Tokyo. So my life started with a lot of “improbable” incidents and my criteria on what is probable and what is not may be different from others. But one thing I clearly remember is when my dad told me that he got a sabbatical leave and I was coming with him to Barcelona, Spain for a year without my mom. I was about 11 when I was told this. I was partially excited because FC Barcelona was my favorite soccer team and I will get to practice with the local soccer team. This was my dream and I didn't think it will be probable, my dad could go anywhere to spend his year on research when he made his final decision, I think my dad considered my strong desire to go to Barcelona. I ended up going with my dad.
ReplyDeleteAn unfortunate time when I was affected by somebody else's prediction was last year, during March Madness. My dad and I submitted our brackets into various pools. It turned out that Kentucky beat Kansas in the finals, which was exactly what I had picked at the beginning of the tournament. Correctly picking the finals means that you have a very good shot of winning the pool, and I assumed that I would come out victorious. However, when I checked the standings, I realized that I had finished second by ten points to my dad, who had correctly picked not only the Finals matchup and result, but he had predicted the entire Final Four.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that there's any special power in predictions. Many people, especially superstitious ones, notice predictions that end up being correct but never take note of the faulty ones.
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ReplyDeleteIt was a gray, rainy day in Atlanta, Georgia. I was about 6 or 7, (or I guess how old I was when this movie came out), and my family had decided to go see a movie. My mom suggested that going to see 'The Incredibles' at the movie theater. Now I, being a stubborn child, was sure that this movie was going to be to scary for me. So I told my mom and she said that if the movie scared me, she would give me a quarter. Since I was really young, ¢25 seemed like a lot of money, so I became determined to dislike that movie. Sure enough, an hour later I was crying as my mom took me out of the theater. I was scared that Mr. Incredible would be shocked to death. I didn't really realize it then, but the fact that I was determined to be right, (and make some mula), made it almost impossible for me to stay for the entire showing. I find it interesting to think that many of our life choices, (even small ones), were decided long before they occurred.
ReplyDelete(Sorry about the previous comment removal, there were a few grammatical errors that needed fixing.)
When I was five years old, my mom took me to Nordstrom with her to pick up a few things she had ordered. On the way to retrieve the items, I spotted a stuffed animal in one of the window displays. I'm not sure what it was about the lopsided, faded pink pig that caught my eye, but I was determined to have it. With hopeful eyes, I approached my mom and asked if she could buy me the pig. To my dismay, she replied, "If you have good behavior!" My birthday was a few weeks from then, and I was set on getting the pig. A few days before my birthday, I asked my mom slowly, "Have I been on good behavior?" My mom, evidently, had completely forgotten about the pig in the display window at Nordstrom, and had expected that I had done the same. As I asked her with gleaming eyes, she remembered what I was talking about. "Yes, sweetie, you've been on very good behavior." After I went to school, she drove back to Nordstrom, with much doubt that the pig would still be in the same place. Luckily, it was, and she bought the stuffed animal for me. I think that my five year old self knew that it was a long shot to get the pig, because 1) I already had many animals that I barely ever looked at and 2) my mom had most likely already gotten most of my presents. Even so, I believed that if I did what my mom told me to, I would be granted exactly what I wanted. So, on my sixth birthday, I received the pig that I had been thinking about for nearly a month. To this day, the pig I spotted in the display window at Nordstrom nine years ago still holds the same sentimental value as when I got it on my sixth birthday.
ReplyDeleteIn the spring of 7th grade, my dad asked if I wanted to run the Peachtree Road Race with him. I was a bit reluctant. After all, he had run the Peachtree for about 20 years and was obviously better than I was. I also was having some knee problems and wasn't sure I could run more than a mile. My dad, however, said he definitely thought I could do it. Once he told me that, I agreed and started training with him. As the spring went into summer, I got better and better and it was finally time for the race. Sure enough, although slowly, I was able to complete it! Had he not said that, I'm not sure I would have agreed or been motivated enough to do the race.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in sixth grade, I wrote an essay for Martin Luther King Jr. Day about the plights that lower income people still face in society. It took me a while to write, but I did not expect to win any awards for it. When I turned it into my Literature teacher, he thought that other people might be offended by the portrale I had shown of the people who were around lower income people as disheartening and selfish in some instances. I thought about what he said, and decided that if people really cared that much about how they were portrayed, they should try to change it. I did not expect many people to get mad by my remarks, but the following day, one of my friends told me he felt offended by when he read it. He told me that I should not be spreading lies about people I didn’t know. At the time, I did not realize he was being irrational in his displeasure with my opinion, and instead thought the teacher was at fault for instigating that people would be mad
ReplyDeleteNot too long ago, this year in fact, my mother made a bet with me. She predicted that by week 3 i would bring home a complaint letter from the teacher. I asked my mom "really not really the supportive mom are you?" She replied "Fine Nishant your probably right anyways i make it 2 weeks." With that i was off on to my freshman year of highschool. Four weeks later i recieved a note from a teacher reading that i had been disruptive. My mother recieved it and said that she'd won our bet. I told her that its been 4 weeks and not 3 nor 2. She gave me a scowl and replied "well i guess i just had high expectations from you nishant," and walked away.
ReplyDelete