One of my most cherished moments from early elementary school was in the 4th grade. My close friend David, a native from Mexico, alongside his mother treated the class to taquitos and some authentic Mexican candies as part of a day to commemorate Mexican culture. The candies came in packets and were gel like in their consistencies and offered up both sweet and spicy flavor. I personally did not care for them much. The taquitos, however, were out of this world. The tortilla was perfectly crunchy and the filling was bursting in flavor with a savory beef filling. I remember having two and wishing I could have ten more. Overall, that day was special and I cannot recall better taquitos in my life.
Fast forward many years later and my friend David admitted to me and our friends that the taquitos he blessed our class with were the frozen store bought ones! I went my entire childhood believing that David’s mother made those from scratch and now I questioned the whole experience that I held dear to my heart. It wasn’t just me either, our close friend Derek who was part of the class also felt betrayed. Aside from me questioning the legitimacy of my childhood, I found the truth bomb rather fascinating. One little piece of information about the taquitos being store bought changed my entire outlook on the legendary experience.
This ties in well with a bit I read from Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow. He discusses how people have two different selves when analyzing moments. There’s the experiencing self and the remembering self. The experiencing self is the part of you attuned to the present moment whereas the remembering self is the part of you that looks back on the experience and casts a judgement on it as a whole. When it comes to experiences, the remembering self has way more power in how you look back on it and in how you make future decisions. As Kahneman puts it, “Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living, and the only perspective that we can adopt as we think about our lives is therefore that of the remembering self.” This is why my taquitos experience was immediately ruined upon David’s confession. The remembering self changed my whole perspective. This is pretty straightforward information that I am sure many of you intuitively understand. However, what I want to stress is that the remembering self can be very irrational.
Kahneman and his colleagues devised a clever experiment where they would subject individuals to pain. The participants were told that they would experience three episodes of their hands being exposed to painfully (but tolerable) cold water. Episode 1 titled the “short episode” would have participants dunk a hand in water that was 14 degrees Celsius for 60 seconds. After the 60 seconds, the instructor would immediately provide the participant with a warm towel. Episode 2 titled the “long episode” was 90 seconds in length. The first 60 seconds were identical to the short episode. After 60 seconds, the instructor without a word would open a valve that would increase the temperature by roughly 1 degree Celsius (enough to create a noticeable less painful experience). After the remaining 30 seconds, the participants would be handed a warm towel.
The participants were split up into two groups. Group 1 did the short episode first while group 2 did the long episode first. Both groups would then wait seven minutes and do the other episode. For the third episode, the participants were asked to choose the more favorable episode to complete. 80% of the participants who reported less pain during the long episode chose to repeat it. Remember that the long episode incorporated the short episode’s pain plus more! This is an irrational decision because in terms of total pain experienced, the long episode provides more without a doubt. However, the remembering self for those participants associated the long episode as more pleasant and influenced the decision. Kahneman noted that wording is very important here because if you had asked the participants whether they’d like to do the total 90 seconds of immersion or just the first part of it, then it would have been a no brainer to choose the short episode. However, by asking them to choose the more favorable option, the participants’ memories were allowed to have more power.
So what can we take away from this? For starters, how one ends an experience is very important because it can make or break the whole moment. Just look at Game of Thrones. The last season nearly destroyed the whole show! But, in their defense, we understand now that our memory can be irrational. A bad ending should not take away from all the joy the first 7 seasons provided its audience. The same should hold true for anything pleasant that shifts towards misery like a relationship or a musical career (I’m looking at you Eminem). Thus, I choose to keep my 4th grade taquitos experience in the sacred filing cabinet of my memories. My remembering self may have a different opinion, but I know rationally that 8 year old me was as happy as can be that day and nothing will take that away.
Link to Kahneman’s book
Cosmic Latte 