My last post was about reference points and how they can create subjective experiences that differ from person to person. If my refence point is dramatically different than another person’s, then our experience of the same objective fact or reality can be quite different. If I suddenly won $1 million dollars my life might change dramatically, but if an incredibly wealthy person suddenly won $1 million, they might not care at all.
Reference points can get even more complicated than the example I just shared which was borrowed from yesterday’s post. Sometimes reference points don’t need to be real in order to shape our subjective experiences of the world. In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman uses the example of an expected raise. If someone knows that their colleagues have received a raise, and expects to get a similar raise but does not, then they can feel as though they have really lost. Their financial situation has not changed, but they created an imaginary reference point in their mind which has shaped the way they think about their current situation.
We all have certain expectations about the world that we adopt as reference points. These reference points don’t have to reflect anything real about the world, but they can still greatly impact our subjective opinions and considerations of the world. They can be vain, such as how attractive we expect our spouse to be, or more positively aspirational, such as how much we expect everyone in society to participate in social causes to help those who are the most needy. There is no real reference point that we are using, just hazy ideas of the way we think things should be, but nevertheless, these imaginary reference points can guide a lot of our thinking and behavior.
In my own life, examining these imaginary reference points has been incredibly helpful for making me a more happy and confident person. It is easy to let imaginary reference points fall to the background, where they run our lives without being considered in a critical way. By thinking deeply about our reference points we can better consider what we should and should not strive for, how much effort or money we need to put toward certain endeavors, and whether our behaviors are really reasonable and worthwhile. Through self-reflection and self-awareness we can recognize goals that serve as reference points which are unreasonable, desires which are vain and should be discarded, and ideas about who we are supposed to be that don’t truly align with our lives and what would help us live in a meaningful and fulfilling manner. Imaginary reference points matter, and they can greatly influence how we live our lives. We should make sure we think about them and let go of those which drive us in the wrong direction.
Novel Learning 