philosophical
recognising pressure
WSA adsense code -->This post was inspired by cleverdude’s currently running series Examining Motives.
I have several Muslim friends. Some are devout, they pray five times a day and have made the Hajj. Others are observant, they don’t drink alcohol and they attend mosques on holy days. Yet others are almost entirely unobservant, they drink alcohol and live with their girlfriends. But not a single one of them eats pork.
I also know many English people with houses. Many of them have beautiful gardens, which you can see at the front of their house. None of them would even consider getting their garden chairs out and sitting out in the front garden and there is no rational reason for this attitude. In fact they look distinctly uncomfortable at even the suggestion of it.
I bet that each of us obey cultural rules - like not eating pork, or not sitting in our own front gardens - even when those rules no longer fit in with the rest of our beliefs or have no rational basis. We do them because everyone else in our society does.
How does this affect our finances? To what extent do we do things because they are expected without examining whether or not they make sense. Are we making decisions with financial implications for well considered reasons, or simply because we believe that we should?
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Plonkee, thanks for the mention. We’re all irrational beings, regardless of being male or female (men usually think more logically, but that doesn’t mean rationally). I observe certain traditions out of respect for others, but also because I don’t feel like going against the grain (I’m lazy).
There’s that joke that goes like this (short form):
Daughter makes a Christmas ham, and always cuts the end off the ham before cooking. Little girl asks why and Daughter says “It’s because my mom always did it”.
Daughter asks her mom why she always did it and Mom answers “Because my mom always did it”.
Mom asks Grandma why she always did it and Grandma answers “Because my baking dish wasn’t big enough for the hams they sold at the store”. And two generations felt wholly embarrassed.
I know a few of these unanswerable, yet unquestioned, traditions in my own family. But yet, I let them go because it’s easier to stay the norm than question why someone does something.