Random thoughts on Christmas

Tim Hartford predicts that “most readers of this column will eat and drink heavily over the next two weeks (as will its writer), and many of us will, on January 1, vow to do better in future.”

If we know what’s going to happen, why don’t we as intelligent being take it into consideration and act on it now. For instance, we could set our resolution during Christmas Eve and starts following-through so we don’t need to regret during the New Year.

This seems like a time-inconsistency problem: ideally we want to do something in the future (be good), but as the future approaches, our optimum decision changes (to be bad). One solution is to bind ourselves to a credible commitment. A few Yale academics built a website to help do it.

But it seems like few people want to make the commitment. So perhaps as Tyler Cowen suggests, most of us actually don’t want to change or feel like losing control. If that’s the case, then we shouldn’t need to feel bad or regret afterward.

Christmas appears to be a big event in Singapore. Lots of tourists came, events abound, and people seem to shop, eat, and drink like crazy. Seeing tons of people on the street make me wonder why people enjoy festivals so much. Perhaps we evolve to enjoy the festivals as winter’s the time of harvest and a good time to build social relationships. If festivals are enjoyable, why don’t we smooth out our consumption to treat everyday more like a Christmas or New Year: more dining out, more gatherings, and show more care to family and friends on a regular basis. Why do we need Christmas or other holidays as an excuse to feel a certain way or do a certain thing? Maybe this one-off pleasure during holidays has increasing returns, or it is an optimal thing to do given other people’s behavior (thinking of herd behavior and game theory). People’s behavior do change during this time: they’ve higher propensity to spend, tend to show more kindness, or feel more gregarious or lonely. So it’s possible that given this circumstance our payoff changes as well.

Since I’m trained as a forward looking agent, here’s what I did on Christmas (sort of doing what I might write on my New Year resolution list later):

1. Went to office to work despite being a holiday.
2. Find a small Japanese Isakaya for dinner
3. Went for a jog and exercise
4. Read books, poems, and whatever materials on my list for self-development
5. Booked a few concert tickets for the coming months
6. Catch up with friends.

It doesn’t appear to me to be an optimal choice and feels very much like any other day. Perhaps it lacks that special something that economics can’t provide. Instead of going out to party, I’m staying at home to analyze Christmas. I guess my miserable personality, not economics, is to be blame.