Head Games

If we use psychology on someone to bring them around to our way of thinking, or get them to do something they don’t want to, we’re accused of messing with their heads, playing mind games, and it’s considered a bad thing.  But for all that we don’t like being accused of it, everybody still does it.  Yes, you do. Especially if you have kids.  What?  You never told your kids their face would freeze that way?  Or that there were kids starving someplace so they had to eat those brussel sprouts?  Maybe not those specific examples, but I’m betting on some variation of the same.  For the most part it’s a tactic you want to use only for good and never for evil because eventually, probably soon than later, the kid figures out that they’ve been had and you’ve lost one of the best weapons in your arsenal. 

But it’s not just with kids.  Politicians use it all the time on the general public, telling us what we want to hear.  We get angry when they do it, but most of the time people fall for it willingly.  An old boss of mine use to have an annoying tendency to say “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  Meaning, that if you once fall for something without examining the logic, maybe you can rationalize that they tricked you.  But if you fall for the same trick a second time, then you pretty much deserve what you get.  And boy do we ever get it! 

In my opinion, though, the best use of mind games is when we use it on ourselves.  For example, if you’re like me you’ve probably been faced at one time or another with an unpleasant task which, however necessary, you avoided doing until it took on mythic proportions.  Like getting myself out of bed during the work week.  I finally set the clock in my bedroom ahead by 10 minutes and put a small desktop clock in the bathroom which I set about 12 minutes ahead.  Why?  Pizzy-chology, and who knows how my mind works better than I do?   Even though I know the time isn’t accurate, maybe because I know it isn’t accurate, I’m motivated to move a little faster and dawdle a little less.

Another example is housework.  I detest it; who doesn’t?  But I love a clean house.  It’s not so much the cleaning part I dread but rather the time-consuming ritual of taking a room apart and putting it back together, the dragging out of rags and chemicals that have to be put back.   Fortunately the companies that make cleaning products know how my mind works, too.  These days they make these nifty disposable thingies that can do the job in a jiffy.  I can fool myself that I’m just “wiping up,” it only takes a fraction of the time, and it’s disposable so there’s nothing to put back.  Is it the same as really cleaning?  Of course not.  The rags and noxious fumes still have to come out eventually.  But it won’t be as big a job because I didn’t procratinate.  Hardly.  I’ve also been known to flat out bribe myself.  If I’ve been putting off a task, such as cleaning out the basement, I dangle a little incentive in front of my own nose:  if I get this done, I’ll have earned a treat. 

I don’t know whether these little tricks mean that I’m clever or gullible.  I don’t think it matters as long as it works.  And I’m sure you have your own little mind game you play.  What is it?

94 comments September 13th, 2008