Joshua Bell's Secret

It's often too easy to miss pleasures and amazing experiences that are right in front of you. The great violinist Joshua Bell proved that with a simple experiment

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Gratitude Diaries, a production of My Heart Radio.
I'm Janis Kaplan. Thanks for joining me for another episode
and another chance to think more gratefully. Today's tip look
at something around you today from a different perspective. You

(00:23):
may find a burst of happiness where you least expected.
Psychologists say that most of us go through a day
having feelings and opinions on just about everything that happens.
We think we're making reasoned decisions, but our reactions tend
to be much more intuitive and off the cuff. None
of us has the mental capacity to make independent judgments

(00:46):
and evaluations on every single thing we experience in the
course of a day, so we fall back on what
are known as touristics. The behavioral economist and Nobel Prize
winner Daniel Kaneman says that a heuristic is our way
of finding easy answers to difficult questions. Basically, a heuristic

(01:07):
is a mental shortcut. Our brains, as I said, can't
analyze every single aspect of every decision we make, so
we try to make things simpler. In one common heuristic,
for example, we compare a strange new situation we encounter
to one we already know and we figure that it's
about the same. We don't always even consciously do this.

(01:30):
Often it does work to make things better for us,
but just as often that heuristic can backfire. Here's a
great example of that. If you've ever traveled by subway
in a major city, you know there are often people
singing or playing music, hoping to collect some spare change
from the people passing by as they rush to their trains.

(01:51):
Your experience probably tells you that most of those musicians
aren't very good. If you do drop a dollar in
their hat, it's mostly out of charity. But what if
that expectation makes you miss something wonderful. Some years ago,
a young guy agreed to do a little experiment. He
went into a Washington subway station wearing jeans, a T shirt,

(02:14):
and a baseball cap, and he spent forty five minutes
or so playing six classical pieces on his violin. Like
most subway musicians, he didn't get too much attention or
really very much money. Thousands of people walked by, but
most of them probably unwittingly used that heuristic that subway
musicians aren't worth a great deal of attention. A few

(02:38):
people did stop to listen and he collected thirty two dollars.
Not bad, but also not terrific, especially given that in
real life he was Joshua Bell, one of the world's
greatest violinists. Oh and that violin he was playing in
the subway, it was a three and a half million

(02:58):
dollar Strata air yus. The point is pretty clear. If
you don't have the right mindset, you can miss pleasures
and amazing experiences that are right in front of you.
We see and hear what we expect to see and hear.
Philharmonic goers would easily shell out a hundred dollars or
more for a ticket to one of Joshua Bell's concerts,

(03:21):
but when presented with it at a subway, they just
didn't notice. If you're all dressed up for a concert
and sitting in a plush chair, you're more receptive to
the music and more likely to ooh and ah than
if you're rushing to your subway. Oftentimes, the pleasure we've
taken something comes from the pleasure we expect to take.

(03:42):
Our mindset and the heuristics we use can lead us
to make lots of mistakes and miss out on reasons
to be happy and grateful. Another common shortcut or heuristic
that our brains naturally use is to rely on what
we've heard most recently or most frequently as a basis
for making decisions or experiencing something. So, for example, if

(04:05):
you ask most people about shark attacks, they'll say that
they're pretty common, and why wouldn't we think that. Steven
Spielberg's film Jaws was one of the highest grossing movies
of all time, and the Discovery channels Shark Week has
been on television every year since. It's the longest running

(04:26):
cable TV event in history. Some of the programming on
Shark Week has actually been fictitious. The network called them
mockumentaries or doc you fiction, But even those shows made
a big impression, and people naturally think about them when
they go for a swim in the ocean. It's much
easier to remember the terrors of Shark Week or the

(04:46):
movie Jaws than to analyze the facts, which say that
shark attacks are exceedingly rare. Recent statistics show that in
the United States, one person dies from a shark attack
about two years. We do need heuristics to get through
the day, but don't let the quick judgments you make

(05:07):
let you miss out on greater pleasures. Often it does
make sense to compare a new situation to when you've
experienced before, but doing that can also make you miss
out on the pleasures of enjoying the glorious violin music
of Joshua Bell. Relying on what you've heard most recently
or most frequently is again a common shortcut that our

(05:28):
minds take. But if doing that is going to make
you afraid of a swim in the ocean rather than
grateful for the chance to enjoy the water and sunshine,
it's really not helping to make you happier. So today,
try to be aware of the shortcuts your mind is
taking in making decisions. You may find that there are

(05:48):
times you want to take a little longer in deciding
how you feel about something. Use new information, a positive perspective,
and your own ability to have a brighter mind set.
It could keep you from missing out on many chances
for gratitude and happiness. Thanks for joining me, I'd love
to hear your thoughts on gratitude and how you find pleasure.

(06:11):
You can reach me at the podcast link at www
dot Gratitude Diaries dot com or the contact link at
Jamie Kaplain dot com. Thanks and have a great day.
The Gratitude Diaries is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

(06:33):
favorite shows.