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College basketball teams have a knack for scheduling relatively easy non-conference games to start their seasons. Xavier University, my alma mater, kicked off its 2017 season with games against Morehead State and Rider, which Xavier won 101-49 and 101-75.
These “cupcakes,” as they’re called, are thrilling: they hype fans up and build confidence, but when it comes to preparing for the challenges of conference play and March Madness, the data suggests that cupcakes do more harm than good.
After poring through heaps of statistics, researchers found that college basketball teams tend to have more successful seasons when their preseason schedules are demanding, which may explain #1 seed Xavier’s disappointing loss to Florida State in the second round of the tournament this year.
Scheduling legit preseason opponents is just one example of what Adam Alter calls hardship inoculation: the idea that struggling through practice trials inoculates us against future hardships, just as vaccinations inoculate us against illness.
Initial struggles are critical – we aren’t designed for perpetual comfort. And we get exposed if we show up unprepared. Unfortunately, these critical struggles are dissipating with the rise of the bubble-wrapped lifestyle.
In terms of survival, life in 2018 is easier and fairer than it’s ever been. We can get food at the touch of a button and we have an infinite network of information in our pockets. Don’t want to deal with rejection and awkward romantic encounters? Just swipe. But the tradeoff of endless convenience is that we’re left cognitively unprepared when shit hits the fan.
Apple, Google, Uber, Tinder create a paradox: they aim to make life easy, justifiably so. But relying on them means we won’t experience the minor hardships (like talking face-to-face) that they eliminate, hardships that inoculate us against things that are genuinely difficult.
Nobody is calling for an all-out rebellion against technology (at least I’m not), but we need to balance it out. So how do we create our own “vaccinations?”
For starters, taking the stairs is harder than taking the elevator, making dinner is harder than using Uber Eats, and reading a book is harder than watching TV; if you’re the most talented person in the room, find a different room (awesome advice from Austin Kleon.)
You get the point.
We can schedule cupcakes or bite the bullet early on. The choice is ours – just don’t get knocked out in the second round.
