Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

"I still have nightmares about missing those two free throws to lose that basketball game against Ritzville. Twenty years later, I can tell you that Doug Wellsandt, Ritzville's star, had just fouled out after he intentionally knocked me to the ground to prevent me from hitting an easy layup. While I stood at the line to shoot the free throws with six seconds on the clock,...my teammates...were praying for me to win the game. We had come from sixteen points down in the fourth quarter! It would have been a miracle victory! But I missed those f***ing free throws, clanging the ball off the rim twice. Until that point, I had been a 90 percent free-throw shooter. After that night, I was a 50 percent loser. I was a victim of a high school form of Post-Traumatic Free-Throw Stress Syndrome. When I see any of my former teammates now, they still tease me about losing that game. A year after those misses, I hit two free throws and two jump shots in the last minute to win a bigger game against Ritzville, but I never dream about that. Hell, my joy in winning is always much smaller than my pain in losing."

[From the Introduction to "The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight In Heaven"--Sherman Alexie]

Why is the last sentence true? It is, but why?

[4 months left]

In investment psychology it is said that it is more painful to take a loss than make a profit. If a stock goes down people will hold on to it to try to recover their losses. If you make money, it wasn't originally yours but if you lose money it was something you earned that is now gone.