Alpha Ideas

For a few months I had been having slight pain in my biceps near my elbows.  My doctor said it was probably an injury from lifting weights.  One night about four weeks ago I was sleeping soundly when I was jolted awaked by much more significant bilateral pain in both of my biceps.  I immediately thought:  “I am having a heart attack; I need to get to an emergency room.”   I woke my wife and asked her to get dressed quickly and to get in the car.  As we were driving to the hospital the painful sensations in my biceps started to go away.  It was at that point that I believe I started telling myself a story about the pain in my arms not really being from a heart attack.   I am sure I was subconsciously thinking: “I have a busy schedule next week. I can’t afford to have a heart attack right now.  This pain is probably nothing.  I probably just hurt myself in the gym. Who gets bicep pain with a heart attack and no chest pain?”  I then said to my wife:  “Maybe we should go home.”  My wife insisted we go to the emergency room.  I might have argued with her, but at that moment I reminded myself about Munger and Buffett’s approach to risk:

“Take the probability of loss times the amount of possible loss from the probability of gain times the amount of possible gain. That is what we’re trying to do. It’s imperfect, but that’s what it’s all about.” http://beta.fool.com/danielsparks/2012/12/14/berkshire-hathaways-downside-protection/18950/

Going to the emergency room emergency room for tests on my heart function was clearly wise since the amount of possible loss was so massive even if the probability was small (which it was not given the symptoms).  After thinking about this formula I no longer argued with my wife about going to the emergency room.  In this case rationality (and my wife) overcame psychological denial, over-optimism and other negative decision making heuristics.  It turned out that my pain was from a small heart attack and three days later I was in the operating room for a triple bypass.-from 25IQ