The Fortune Cookie Experiment

Current Mood: mellow

A few weeks back some friends of mine (mostly co-workers around Earhart Hall) convinced me to take part in a project they'd cooked up, something they called The Fortune Cookie Experiment. For one week we all agreed to eat dinner at Earhart Dining Court and grab a fortune cookie from the stir-fry station. For the next 24 hours, we were to live as if the fortune was 100% true (without explicitly broadcasting it, unless that was part of the fortune), and to note the result.

Monday's fortune: You have musical talents. Make them known.
Result: I do have musical talents, but I try not to brag, so this one made me feel awkward. If anything, I wait until somebody asks me about it or the situation allows me to bring it up naturally (like karaoke or Rock Band). That said, I changed my Facebook status to talk about my vocal range, and told people I knew about how I played in concert band in middle and high school.

Tuesday's fortune: He who is aware of his folly is wise.
Result: This one was exhausting. In an attempt to be more wise, I spent the entire day trying to be hyper-aware of things I knew I didn't know much about.

Wednesday's fortune: Your perseverance will pay off soon.
Result: I interpreted "soon" as sometime within the next few days, which meant I largely forgot about my fortune waiting for something to fall into my lap. Nothing did.

Thursday's fortune: You have an unusually magnetic personality.
Result: *rolls eyes* Scott and Anna found out about this one and ran into me every time I walked by them for a full day.

Friday's fortune: We can learn from everyone, especially from our enemies.
Result: I went about my day hoping Snidely Whiplash would leap from the shadows and teach me about advanced mathematics. No dice.

Saturday's fortune: Your energy is at a peak. Channel it into creative activities.
Result: I spent all of Friday working and doing errands, and was completely exhausted by today. I did very little activity at all, much less something creative.

Sunday's fortune: You'll accomplish more later if you take some time for yourself.
Result: I slept in, and then spent several hours reading stuff online. Later...I played video games. No discernible change in accomplishment levels.


Conclusions: I don't hold fortune cookies in very high regard. They're in the same boat as horoscopes and tarot cards, for me. I anticipated a series of general statements that would be difficult to implement into my daily life, and that's more or less what I got. They also threw in some proverb-type statements, which I fully expected.

I would've been more impressed if I'd gotten Saturday and Friday's fortunes switched. Also, my days are not very dynamic, since I stay up and then sleep in working in a mostly-empty residence hall, so it was difficult to apply these with any meaningful result.

The only one I really was surprised by was the first one, and I admit I was uncomfortable "making it known".

Lastly, human interaction remains devoid of ferromagnetic properties. Myth busted.