Come the next morning... and nursing a hangover and lack of sleep, everyone suddenly realises that game of golf is just not going to happen.
This is just a single example of a a much wider phenomenon, and there was a very cool wired article about this a few weeks back: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/vodkagoals/
The cool thing to notice is the graph. For non drinks, the expectation of succeeding at a goal is proportional to their committment to that goal. For drinkers, you would expect that gradient to alter to a degree, but it turns out it absolutely flatlines! Someone experiencing the effects of alcohol feels the same degree of commitment in going to the shops next week as they do in going to the moon!
So while this may seem like a bad thing, I think this is definitely one of the things that makes alcohol such a great social lubricant (good thing). Some of the really great conversations you have with people at the pub are the passionate conversations people have about niche interests, goals and dreams. We all have a huge list of things we think would be great to do, but realise aren't likely or aren't easily obtainable, so have little committment on our part. As such, we probably wouldn't talk about it normally as we wouldn't want to be held accountable or show our lack of commitment to something we admit we would like to do.
But now in the pub, someone mentions something that overlaps with your vast array of things you would be interested in, and possibly others as well, and now you are all engaged in an authentically passionate conversation about it. Your normal reservations discussing something you know so little about, or your perceived waste of time in hearing information about something you will never do are stripped away.
So sure, you converse with people all night about stuff that bears little fruit as you would demand from a normal conversaion, but the shear wealth of conversation it generates, getting us to expose our normally reserved dreams and goals in life, really allows those gems that come up. The great conversations you remember, the others forgotten.
A boon to justify that tipple at the pub :)
1 comment:
Hi Nate,
Interesting thoughts (and link). I'm a big fan of things that can catalyse people enacting their ambitious yet admirable dreams. If a lubricated conversation can help unearth that dream, that's fantastic.
The disappointing part of the study was how the commitment disappears when the sun comes up. The conversations (if remembered) were great, but the dreams remain longed for, yet unrealised. :(
Though perhaps there's the possibilty that the conversation involves someone who is able to increase the expectation of success (maybe to the intersection on the graph) such that a (non-induced) commitment can be sustained long after the stumble home.
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