Headwinds/Tailwinds Asymmetry, Gratitude, and Relationship Advice

Freakonomics Radio has a podcast called Why Is My Life So Hard? where they talked with Tom Gilovich of Cornell and Shai Davidai of the New School for Social Research about the concept of headwinds/tailwinds asymmetry:

Most of us feel we face more headwinds and obstacles than everyone else — which breeds resentment. We also undervalue the tailwinds that help us — which leaves us ungrateful and unhappy. How can we avoid this trap?

Here’s a more specific example:

GILOVICH: The idea should be familiar to anyone who cycles or runs for exercise. Sometimes you’re running or cycling into the wind, and it’s not pleasant. You’re aware of it the whole time. It’s retarding your progress and you can’t wait until the course changes so that you get the wind at your back. And when that happens you’re grateful for about a minute. And very quickly, you no longer notice the wind at your back that’s helping push you along. And what’s true when it comes to running or cycling is true of life generally.

This psychological bias relates to all kinds of things in life, including why you think your parents were easier on your siblings than you or why everyone thinks their sports team is always treated unfairly.

Personally, this reminded me of some relationship advice that I was given years ago. Here’s are the basic observations:

• You are accurately aware of every single good thing you do for your spouse or partner.
• You are not going to notice every single good thing your spouse/partner does for you.

Simple logic leaves you with the following conclusion:

Your goal should be to feel like you are giving more than you receive. Even if in reality both of you are doing equal numbers of good things for each other, you should still feel like you are doing a bit more because you missed things. Alternatively, if you don’t feel like you are giving at least a bit more than you are receiving, then you probably aren’t doing enough. This concept could also be applied somewhat to professional work relationships.

A similar idea is that when you visit a or national park or campground, try to leave it cleaner than you arrived. You might have left some bit of garbage that you didn’t even notice.