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Happy Halloween! Though I think we all agree that Halloween should never be on Sunday.

What am I afraid of? I get scared of advanced statistics, calling people on the telephone, talking to strangers, climbing ladders, cougars, and dark windows after watching scary movies.

I am not a thrill seeker. I don’t particularly like roller coasters or horror films or things like that.

But life would be boring if I wasn’t scared of anything. When I’m doing something I’m sort of scared of–venturing outside of my comfort zone–I feel more alive and excited.

So I do think I like being scared. But only sometimes.

Often, anecdotal evidence is dismissed as insignificant. Just because one thing happened to one person does not mean we can generalize it to the general population.

Anecdotal evidence can be unreliable because we often hear it from a distance: secondhand or thirdhand or even more distant than that, the stories get changed around as people draw the wrong conclusions. You heard from a friend who heard from another friend that this happened to their cousin–this is not a good way to draw general conclusions.

Larger data sets with statistical analysis can be so much better in so many aspects. It’s a better way to draw general conclusions about the population. If you want to establish causation, it’s good to have a randomized trial.

But there are also situations where anecdotes can be a lot better than statistical data.

Psychology is the study of the mind, and much of what we know about the mind is anecdote. Anecdotes can be incredibly important to understand people.

Anecdotes can lead to understanding the personal significance of problems. Anecdotes are important because individuals are important.

If I’m trying to change my behavior, I want anecdotes.

If I’m trying to figure out how to help individuals with specific problems, I want anecdotes.

Just because it is more probable that one outcome will occur doesn’t meant the other outcome won’t happen. We often need anecdotes to put the statistics in the right perspective, as our brains don’t deal with statistical data very well.

Anecdotal data is still valid, but it can be more or less useful depending on the situation. So sometimes we need data and sometimes we need anecdotes.

If I’m doing a medical study about the effectiveness of a drug, I need a randomized trial with lots of data. But if I’m trying to figure out how to fight social problems such as racism or addiction or illegal immigration, I need anecdotes to better understand why these things are happening.

I’m reading a book by an economist, and at one point, she says that more data is always better.

But is it?

More bad data is not better. You can look at methodology and sort out the bad data for the good data, but sometimes that’s hard. And good studies can lead to the wrong conclusions.

More data can also be more overwhelming. It takes time and energy to sort through all that data.

More data can lead to decision paralysis, as you are constantly looking for more data to try to figure out the best option, when it doesn’t really matter.

More data can be mean time wasted on studying things that don’t really matter. Or time wasted in reinforcing already establish conclusions.

Adding more and more data and details to a model can make it overly complicated and lead to incorrect conclusions.

So more data can be better sometimes, but not always.

My usual M.O. is to . . .

What’s his M.O.?

I have heard this throughout my life, often on crime shows, but I read it today and realize I had no idea what it stands for.

My first guess was it stood for “method of operations,” or similar. But it actually stands for “modus operandi,” which is basically Latin for “mode of operating.”

So it begs the question: why are we still using the Latin phrase? Why doesn’t M.O. just stand for “mode of operating”?

Lately, I’ve been struggling to get started and continue with certain projects because I don’t really believe I can do them successfully.

For example, I usually wait around for my husband to do construction projects, because I figure he can do them better than I can, and because I’m scared to get started and make mistakes. And I have made mistakes, but I am also capable enough that I just need to get started.

I also think about writing novels again, but the fact is, millions of novels are written and only thousands are read by a large group of people. So it’s hard to get to back to writing when the data simply says that I’ll never be good enough.

I still have a hard time believing that I am good at math or statistics and would be able to complete higher-level classes that involve calculus and more complex modeling.

And I don’t really believe I could get anything published, so I often don’t even write in the first place. And I have a hard time thinking I could ever have a social media following, so I never post on my home renovation Instagram account.

I don’t necessarily want to do all of those things, but I often don’t get started and flounder away in the beginning stages because I don’t want to try and fail. If failure is so common and success is so rare, why try anyway?

The wisdom of the quote books say that it is better to try and fail than to not try at all (I’m looking at you, Theodore Roosevelt, and you’re refrain that I should be daring greatly).

But here’s the thing: you often hear from successful people how to be successful, but you never hear from the thousands and millions of people who try and fail. Failure is often much more common than success, and you can do everything right and still fail, since success is a whole lot of luck.

But I have to ignore the data, and believe in myself irrationally, and just keep trying. Because the quotes are right: it is much more fun to fail spectacularly than to waste away your time in things that don’t matter much.

I guess I don’t have to believe that I’ll be successful: I just have to believe that I can try and make an attempt at it. And if I fail and make mistakes, I’ll be okay.

Questions are good. But like a child constantly asking, “Why? Why Why?,” too many questions can be overwhelming.

It’s not good to constantly be questioning yourself and what you do and who you are.

It’s not good to sit and ponder on uneasy, unanswerable, and overwhelming questions.

Sometimes we don’t get answers.

Sometimes none of the answers are perfect.

Sometimes we just have to go forward anyway.

1. Have lots of conversations. The more times you talk with other people, the better you will get at it and the more chance you will have to talk about interesting things.
2. Try to talk about ideas and experiences instead of people.
3. Listen to other people instead of just thinking about what you want to talk about.
4. But don’t ask too many questions. Conversations are not interviews.
5. Conversations are two-sided, so you should share your own anecdotes and thoughts.
6. When the conversation is stalling, you can ask random questions or bring up something you want to share.
7. Open up your life and be vulnerable.
8. Be okay with saying something that is awkward or not quite right.
9. Don’t suddenly change topics when people are still talking, particularly if you are in a group (only do that when the conversation has obviously stalled). Don’t just say anything that pops into your head that might be slightly related. Don’t one-up people with your experience that is slightly better than theirs.
10. Be okay with silence and reflection. Sometimes everyone needs to think for a minute and give the ideas some space.
11. If someone asks you a person question, give a good, long answer. They are asking you about yourself and they want you to share.
12. Sometimes you don’t want to talk. Sometimes other people don’t want to talk. So sometimes no conversation is wanted or needed.

I just googled, “How to be more rational.” There are plenty of articles and videos and advice about how to become more reasonable and logical and make better decisions.

You can imagine (or you have experienced) an argument where one person is getting highly emotional and the other person says, “Calm down and be rational for a moment!”

I remember being in a political argument with someone on the internet and she was very angry. It was a very righteous anger. She encouraged other people to be angry with her. (It was about wealth distribution, back a few years ago when it was trending for whatever reason.)

Anger can help foster change. Being angry make people protest and fight for a different world.

But when the anger isn’t founded on anything rational, it can be very frustrating and not effective. In my short political argument with this person, I was trying to bring some calm rationality about how the subject wasn’t so clear-cut. She didn’t want to hear it.

And honestly, when the subject wasn’t trending, and people weren’t angry anymore, nothing had changed because no one had bothered to fight for a rational solution.

So we often need to be rational. But we can’t discount emotions either.

The two things aren’t always in opposition to each other. There is no real dichotomy between logic or emotions. Emotions don’t necessitate that we are irrational, and when emotions are accompanied by rational or reasonable belief, that’s the basic motivation for everything good that we do.

I do need to be more rational. Sometimes I am yelling and it makes no sense. Sometimes I don’t think things through. But sometimes I am too rational, and I think about things way too much and don’t make the quick decisions that I need.

So yes, being more rational is better quite a lot of times. But that doesn’t mean we need to be less emotional. And sometimes, just doing the quick and easy (not quite rational) thing is perfectly fine.