As you might imagine, the life of a business student can be very exciting, especially studying for the next upcoming exams which are scheduled a couple of days before Christmas. While everything around oneself is starting to spark in red, green and other lights accompanied by feelings of joy and the entertainment of listening to Christmas songs, this time can also be shaped by another perspective filled with formulas derived by well-known individuals from the field of mathematics/economics.
Not to say that I am not enjoying the inspirational input in form of formulas describing economic situations put into two-dimensional models filled with assumptions of production levels of an economy, based on some letters which try to represent the demand which are furthermore dependent of other letters standing for an economies’ level of consumption, investment, government spending, etc.
I hope you feel as excited and fulfilled by this information as I do because these models truly prove their relationship to reality — not.
There have been many situations when professors are being asked about situations which are not captured by these models like human decisions which are based on many complex processes taking part outside the box of such models. In case, these questions are being asked, many professors reply with the following answer “Well, this is just a simple model which tries to represent the complex world of economic situations. Therefore, it can’t fully be applied to the reality.”
I have always asked myself the question why students are asked to study these models for the matter of an exam if these models are only true for the sake of putting some variables together into a formula which gives the opportunity to achieve an equilibrium condition. WOW! That’s truly exciting and interesting to calculate with some random variables taken out of nowhere just to show that some kind of model works which is almost 100 years old.
However, I guess I am not in the right position to ask myself these questions now as they are not taking me anywhere, especially not 9 days before the exam.
Consequently, approaches started to arise in my mind aiming for a transformation of such formulas to much more realistic topics like the human self. Therefore, I have had an idea which I would like to share because I believe that it needs and can be proven by ourselves as we are the main drivers of it.
As the field of economic studies likes to put everything into simple models of the complex real world, I will not leave this approach as it proves to be a smart way to describe the complex human self. I hope that this will be easy to understand for any individual outside the world of pre-christmas exam preparation.
All of the following assumptions clearly derived from a thought and my own experience shaped by my own interactions with the outer world. Therefore, I am not claiming to be any of this true as these are only hypotheses which need to be proven by every individual personally. However, I believe that this formula is a good transformation of what we all already know.
1. Assumption (Main formula):
Human self = Physical Body + Human Mind
This formula clearly describes the relationship of the human self as being equal to its physical body and human mind as these are the two forms that human beings can be identified with.
2. Assumption (Subformulas)
Physical Body = ∑ (Nourishment) + ∑ (Physical Movement)
This equation describes the case that the physical body of a human being is a sum of its input of nourishment in form of the food and drinks we consume plus physical activity which can be interpreted as any kind of form of body movement which has an effect on the human body.
Human Mind = Genes + (∑ individual interpretation x experience)
Individual interpretation = positive (+) negative (-) or neutral
Experience = Sum of Senses (Vision, Hearing, Smell, Taste, Touch)
Genes & Experience
The human mind is represented by the genetic pillar that we are naturally born with, plus all of the experiences that are made in every second of life. No matter if it’s seeing a person, hearing a story, touching, tasting or smelling something. Everything that happens in the outer world makes its way to the inner self through the eyes, ears, mouth, etc. Depending on the level of consciousness of every individual, some experiences are being noticed consciously while others appear unconscious. They are still part of the reality with which the human being interacts. Therefore, every second being perceived, conscious or unconscious, makes its way to the human mind.
I believe that every person can relate to this statement.
Just ask yourself why you think how you think. Isn’t it a sum of your past experience? All of the people you have met, all the books you have read, the videos you have watched on YouTube, the posts you have seen on social media platforms, the conversations you have had, the music you have listened to, and so on. Of course, it is important to say that not all of the information you have been exposed to remains in your memory and therefore shapes your way of thinking.
Individual interpretation
Therefore, it is important to add that such experiences depend on the individual interpretation which can be of positive, neutral or negative nature. Depending on the emotional constitution of a human being in every moment of these experiences, there are different individual interpretations of reality being made. There are numerous of studies conducted by many scientists which show that emotions and memory go hand in hand in the following relationship:
If events happen with the involvement of emotions, they will be more likely recalled and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.
This explains why some of us remember some events and others don’t.
The reason for this is that every individual constantly perceives the world in a different setting of emotions. Even though we experience the same events at the same time, there is a clear difference in the perception.
Some of us tend to remember negative experiences more clearly than positive which can be explained by the negativity bias. However, every memory being made depends on the individual input of a human being in form of emotions.
Having said all of this, I believe that we can have an impact on the way how we individually perceive the world explained by these formulas.
We consist out of the human body and mind. That is something we cannot change.The only thing that can be changed is the way how we feel, how we perceive the world, what we do out of our lives, how we interact with people, etc., etc.
How we feel with ourselves depends on how we feel with our bodies and mind. Therefore, if we feel bad and are interested in knowing why we feel bad, we can take the approach to analyze if its because of physical reasons of the body, e.g. being sick, having pain somewhere and if we can do something about it, or if it’s because how we individually perceive the situation. As the human mind depends on the experiences being made throughout life and our individual interpretation of them, we have the freedom to individually change any situation we are in, based on the values and expectations we have. As we are influenced by everything that is around us, I believe it is important to be aware of the freedom that we have to choose for ourselves which books we read, which movies we watch and which people we want to be surrounded with, as all of these things shape us. Prove me if I’m wrong.