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The counterweight
Picture a kid who just won a wrestling tournament and wants to celebrate with a triple cheese pizza. The counterweight says it was a great day, then turns toward next week and suggests a few slices as the reward. The same applies to a person's own wins. A success is great, and all glory is fleeting, so it is time to get back to work.
Why celebration still counts
Celebration still matters. People who never stop to say that was awesome, we had a big win, high five, probably get burned out eventually. The counterweight does not shut a kid down who walks off the mat with a hand up for a high five by saying he could have won by more. After a loss, it does not tell him he got what he deserved.
Friends with no counter
People's downfalls normally come when they have surrounded themselves with no counter. Say one man goes out drinking, parties all night, and tells his friend about it. If the friend answers heck yeah, let's do it again tonight, they will both end up in the gutter. If the friend says that sounds awesome, but there is school on Monday, he pulls the first man back toward balance.
Why do the people around us shape our habits?
Economist Bruce Sacerdote took advantage of a natural experiment at Dartmouth College, where first-year roommates were assigned at random. Writing in 2001, he found that a student's grades were linked to those of the roommate. Roommates also tended to join the same kinds of social groups, and the effect on fraternity membership was strong.
Why does a big win stop feeling big?
Psychologists call it hedonic adaptation, and it showed up in a 1978 study by Philip Brickman, Dan Coates, and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman. They interviewed 22 people who had won major lottery prizes and compared them with people who had not won. The winners did not rate themselves as happier overall, and they took less pleasure than the comparison group in ordinary events such as chatting with a friend or reading a magazine.
Why did Roman triumphs include a whispered warning?
According to the Christian writer Tertullian, writing around 200 AD, a slave stood behind a Roman general riding in his triumph and whispered a reminder that he was only a man. The words he records are look behind you and remember you are a man. Historians continue to debate how routine the practice was. The later Latin phrase sic transit gloria mundi, meaning thus passes the glory of the world, was spoken at papal coronations for centuries while a piece of flax was burned.
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