What Is It All About?

A group of monkeys were locked in a room with a pole at the center. Some luscious, ripe bananas were placed on top of the pole. When a monkey would begin to climb the pole, the experimenters would knock him off with a blast of water from a fire hose.

Each time a monkey would climb, off he would go, until all the monkeys had been knocked off repeatedly, thus learning that the climb was hopeless. After trying to climb the pole several times and being dragged down by the others, he finally gave up and never attempted to climb the pole again.

The experimenters then observed that the other primates would pull down any monkey trying to climb. They replaced a single monkey with one who didn’t know the system. As soon as the new guy tried to climb, the others would pull him down and punish him for trying.

One by one, each monkey was replaced and the scene repeated until there were no monkeys left in the room that had experienced the fire hose. Still, none of the new guys were allowed to climb. The other monkeys pulled them down. Not one monkey in the room knew why, but none were allowed to get the bananas.

We aren’t monkeys but sometimes we exhibit behaviour that seems rather chimplike.

What if we think by ourselves?

John Maxwell’s experiment described above (the description was taken from Dave Ramsey’s book, The Total Money Makeover) is the best way to define these publications and society’s behaviour over the last years. We stop questioning because we are deceived to do so. The words as expensive as the suits worn by the speakers who pronounce them make them an authority.

As Horace once said, “We are deceived by the appearance of right.”

Our first ages of life are the most fascinating ones. Not because we know it all but the opposite, we actually know we don’t know a damn thing. So we ask. We explore. And we don’t accept everything as a good answer. We are far from the monkeys described above.

Then we grow up and we start thinking that we know it all. But we don’t. And we won’t. Never. And what happens with societies today: most of the things we agree on we don’t know why.

At some point someone tell us
- “Hey, buy an house instead of rent one”

or

- “The stock market is a very dangerous place, keep your money in bank instead”

and we get it as right.

Then the house market collapse and the banks where you had your money (exactly the same place they told you to keep your money in) fill for bankruptcy.

In the meantime the stock market averages to ~12% on gains (per year) over the last 80 years and you can use the money you don’t used to buy an house (you rent) to get those 12%. Even better, you don’t owe a pence so you can sleep at night.

The truth is, we are always looking for some authority to give us some guidance about what is right or wrong, to confirm our expectations and help us to feed our need to be right. At some point, we have no idea where such a thing come from, we just accept that as the most right thing our ears ever heard. And then we stop asking. And we become like those monkeys.

We take all those experts’ opinions as the holy truth ignoring completely that 99% of them are often wrong. At some point, some of them got it right… but it is a matter of probability. In an even distribution with 50% of chances to get it right, in the long run we get it right and wrong half of the time. Fair enough.

Let’s stop for a bit, make our reflections and question if what we are told so is as right as it looks like.

Have a good time and see you soon.