Chapter 22
Rating the Quality of Experience
There are two formulae that I have developed that help to better understand life's activities and to assess the risk before embarking on an adventure. The first one deals with experiences and helps to enhance and better understand them, either in advance or after the event on reflection.
In the first case, suppose you attend a play that your friends have raved about and you go and are disappointed. The first time I went to Tampa, Florida I expected a great thrill seeing all the new things but discovered that it was just like Buffalo with palm trees! On trying to explain this kind of let down, I realized that the realization was less than the expectation. On the other hand, if you go to see a ball game and your side isn't expected to win, but it does, then that is where the realization is greater than the expectation. So I put this into a formula like this:
For a good experience, Realization must be greater than the Expectation, or expressed as a formula it becomes;
QualityofExperienceisenhancedwhen Realization over Expectation is greater than one. Or, R over E >1 Or again: RE >1
So now when you read that a movie is spectacular you prepare yourself so that when you go your expectations are held in check so that the realization is not a let-down. And therefore your enjoyment should be enhanced!
The second formula concerns the evaluation of the risk in advance of a new adventure and relates the consequences of things going wrong to the probability of this happening. For example, you are going to take a plane to a destination in some distant city. The consequences of a crash are disastrous; yet the probability is so low that you normally don't worry about it. You consider the risk low very low.
However, if you decide to cross a city street at a very busy intersection, the consequences of things going wrong are quite serious. The probablilty could well be over 50% that this might happen, so you would be foolish to take such a risk.
Now, expressing this situation of consequences and probablity as a formula goes something like this:
Consequences (on a scale of one to ten) multiplied by probability (on a scale of one to ten) gives a number from one to a hundred.
Rating the plane trip where Consequences (C) = 10 and Probability (P) = 0.01 shows a risk of O.1 gives a result quite low and therefore safe risk to take. Restating: CxP=0.1
Rating the risk of crossing the busy street would be: Consequences (C) = 9 and Probability (P) = 5 (or 50%). Restating: CxP=45.
Summing this up: When CxP >25, don't take the risk!
Test this formula out for yourself on some adventure you are about to embark on or would like to embark on.
Then don't hold me responsible if you take a risk and my formula didn't apply!