We all know them. Heck, we all are them! Smart people, who sometimes (maybe even more than sometimes) do stupid things. But if we are smart people, why do we do stupid things? Well I have a theory – I think smart people do stupid things for many reasons obviously, but more importantly all of the different reasons lead back to the same underlying way of thinking. 

The ultimate reason why smart people do stupid things is because they think they will get more pleasure or experience less pain from doing that thing than they would from doing something else. I am taking this basic idea from Anthony Robbins, and applying it to this specific situation. So let me explain what I mean a little more now…

I’ll use an example that many of us can associate with to help explain this whole thing. So let’s look at a situation involving a hypothetical person named John. John is a smart guy, has a few close friends, and a descent job. One day he is overweight and has decided to go on a diet and start exercising to get back in shape and be healthier. So he starts out for the first few days doing pretty well. The first day he eats 4 small meals throughout the day with salads, grilled chicken, and other healthy nutritious foods and appropriate portions. He also goes for a 30 minute walk that day. The next day he eats pretty much the same thing, but works out with weights instead of walking. But unfortunately for him, the next day he wakes up late because there was a power outage the night before and his alarm clock didn’t go off, plus he was tired from working out the day before and while at work his boss asks him to complete a report that afternoon at work so he has to stay late in order to finish it. He end up skipping breakfast so he can get to work on time, eats a big lunch because he’s famished, and eats a big dinner when he gets home too because he had to stay at work so long. Then after dinner he’s too tired to do any kind of exercise (not to mention he feels sluggish because his belly is so full, and he’s sore from working out the day before). So he just watches some TV instead. He finds something he likes to watch and ends up staying up later than normal. He wakes up the next morning at the normal time, but feels tired because he went to bed so late so he doesn’t do any working out that morning either. He also just stops at McDonald’s that morning on the way to work because it’s easier to get something from there fore breakfast than it is to make something at home. And so it continues. He eventually gives up on even trying to stick to his healthier eating and exercising, gains any weight he had lost back (and a couple extra pounds too) and feels even worse now because he’s still overweight and he has a failed attempt to get healthier to add to his poor attitude now too.

The things John did were all his choice, and he truly wanted to loose weight and get healthier…so why did he fail? Was it because his power went out causing his alarm clock to not go off, and him waking up late? Was it because his boss made him stay late to work on a report? Nope. But he couldn’t control that stuff and it made it very difficult for him to stick to his diet and exercise plan so can you really blame him for giving up? Yup. When you boil it all down, it all comes down to what John decides to do. When he woke up late, he could have gotten something healthy to eat real quick before work (a piece of fruit or something). He could have went for a walk during his lunch break while eating a sandwich so he could at least get a little exercise in. When he got home he could have did some push-ups and crunches that night instead of watching TV,…or even do them during the commercial breaks! And he definitely could have went to bed earlier. All he had to do if he really wanted to watch that TV show would be to tape it (DVR, TAPE, DVD, whatever).  Or as crazy as this sounds…he could have just not watched it!

So why did John make these mistakes? Why did a smart man do these stupid things? Because he felt that what he did choose to do would give him more pleasure and/or less pain than doing something else would. The day when he woke up late, he chose to skip breakfast because it was easier than finding something healthy to eat would have been. So he avoided the pain of the inconvenience of having to find something healthy to eat for breakfast by just not eating breakfast and waiting until lunch to eat. Then when he ate a big lunch it was because he wanted to experience the pleasure of satisfying his hunger rather than the pain of eating an appropriate portion of food for lunch and possibly not feeling really “full.” The same thing applies when he gets home and eats the big dinner. Then when he decided to watch TV instead of working out or going to sleep at a descent time, it’s because he felt that watching that TV show would give him more pleasure than working out would or than missing it to get one more hour of sleep would. Untimately, when he gave up on his diet and exercise plan, it’s because he ultimately decided that it would be more pleasurable to keep living his life the way he was comfortable with. And it would be painful to keep trying so hard to stick to the diet and exercise plan. In fact it would be more painful to do that then it was to know he was overweight. So getting back in to shape and healthier wasn’t a pleasurable enough desire for him to deal with the pain necessary to get there.

That is what I mean by smart people do stupid things because they want to gain pleasure or avoid pain. John and his diet and exercise plan was just one example. But this concept applies to almost every type of decision that people make, and it’s at the root of almost every stupid decision that people – yes, even smart people – make.

Reflect on your own life and some of the decisions you’ve made recently. Did you make them to try to gain pleaure or avoid pain? Did you do something stupid because of that desire to gain pleasure or avoid pain? What will you do next time you’re faced with a decision to do something that’s right and good but that will cause you some kind of pain or make you miss out on some kind of pleasure? My hope is that you will keep this concept in mind and that it will help you make better decisions in the future. Here’s to all the smart people out there who will from here on out, do many fewer stupid things!  =)