This one is borrowed directly from the book by Sean B. Carroll, entitled, “A Series of Fortunate Events. Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life and You.” This a book every human being that can read should read, and if you can’t read, get someone to read it to you. It’s important. It’s irrefutable. And it’s zero BS. Facts are the most delicious condiments!

Decisions are tough. There are so many factors to weigh in, and since we’re not psychic, we are unable to ascertain the outcome while we are in the throes of decision-making. Facts, and statistics are like the ingredients in a recipe: in a stew, for example, you can add a little extra pepper or mushrooms; in a pie crust, these ingredient measurements must be spot on. And even then, there are no guarantees.

When we choose to follow a dream or pursue a goal, we are taking a chance or chances. Sure, it might turn out fine, but odds are it won’t. Good old Murphy has thrown in a law or two, too. But convincing ourselves that odds are with us can be fatal.

Here are a few paragraphs, paraphrased from Mr. Carroll’s section on “Falling for Fallacies”. Pay attention and ensure you don’t talk yourself into nonsense when you are making decisions, the more serious, the more dangerous…

Roughly 30,000,000,000 lemmings go to Las Vegas every year to gamble. A total of $4,282,000,000 USD is spent in Monte Carlo each year on gambling tourism. Lotteries? Don’t get me started. Of course, someone wins lotteries, and if you don’t play, you can’t win, but also think of this: if you put $10 into a jar every day for one year, you would have $3650.00 at year’s end. Most people could save like that by avoiding Starbuck’s every day. Imagine!

Here’s a fact: the house advantage in an average Keno game is 30%! And yet, we still play our favourite “lucky” numbers on lottery tickets when the fact is that random numbers are more likely to be winners. I, for one, play a local gambling game called Toonie Toss. It is run by the Rotary Club branch in my town, and it costs two dollars a week. A 50/50 draw, the weekly payout varies, and it’s usually around $7,000, but when there’s a rollover, the amount goes up until there is a winner. I have never won, but why do I keep trying? Odds are better than larger forms of lotteries, partly because there are fewer players, but being a 50/50 draw, the other half of what my prize money would be goes to local charities and good causes. In my community. I see this, then, as a very inexpensive way to help my community, and hey, I might win a few grand. It’s a donation, as far as I am concerned. No expectations.

On the 18th of August 1913, at the Casino de Monte Carlo, a frenzy of sorts developed, and demonstrates how blind silly humans can be. Odds. The odds are against odds. A run of black numbers at a roulette table made gamblers, everyone, take notice. By the time the wheel had turned up black numbers 15 times, people started playing increasingly large bets on the assumption that a red number had to be imminent. Nope. It took 26 black numbers before there was a red one. The casino cleaned up nicely.

Is your business having a bad day? Are your dreams not unfolding, at least not as planned? Here’s a direct quote from Mr. Carroll’s book, regarding what is known as the “gambler’s fallacy” (read: your stupid way of magical thinking):

“…the belief that when some event happens more or less frequently than expected over some period, then the opposite outcome will happen more frequently in the future. For random events such as rolls of dice or the spin of roulette wheels, this belief is false because each result is independent of the previous rolls or spins.”

Am I suggesting you don’t gamble? Judge yourself. Not my job. Just don’t delude yourself into thinking there is a pattern or a set outcome because of a pattern of incidents. Stuff is random. If we could calculate the outcome, it wouldn’t be a gamble, eh?