Bracketology not limited to just March Madness
Given that a perfect NCAA tournament bracket is about as likely as winning the Powerball jackpot while being struck by lightning – which would be really good and bad luck – it is easy to think there are probably better ways America could have spent its time early this week.
Let’s just put that to rest right now. Yes, March Madness supposedly costs the economy billions in lost workplace productivity and just as much will illicitly be wagered in office pools – it’s OK, we won’t tell – usually ending up in the hands of the lady in accounts who chose based on mascot or jersey color or favorite number.
But what if we need more brackets in our mundane existences, not less of them? As your workplace dreams are crushed by some plucky mid-major, why not truly embrace your own Madness of March? Dive into bracketology and make it a part of your life. Cast Winthrop and UNC-Wilmington from your mind and become your own bracketologist.
Torn between the sandwich choices at
lunchtime? Pull out a bracket and select away. Agonizing over paint schemes for the living room wall? Stick Eggshell White up against Gentleman’s Gray in a first-round showdown and take it from there. Anything goes. New car models. Clothing selections for an evening out. Date night ideas. Easy.
It’s not idle tomfoolery, it actually saves you time. Give each decision a shot clock to keep things moving. For smaller picks, like ice cream flavors, 30 seconds is perfect. For things with a little more gravity, like, ooh, retirement plans or school districts, yeah, maybe give it a little longer.
Here is the point where a confession is needed. I am a bracketologist. Not a college basketball one and despite writing about sports for a living these past 16 years, not a sports one either.
I use brackets for decisions great and small and also purely for trivial entertainment. I make the list of entries, rank a few top seeds – though not normally all the choices – and get at it. Remarkably, I am not the only person I know who does this.
One pal used the system to name his first son, was stunned when the No. 6 seed (Caleb) prevailed, then fretted about whether his judgment had been shifted because he was subconsciously “rooting for the underdog.”
Sometimes it is like life imitates the hobby, or at least leans towards the numeric part of it. I have had eight bosses (mostly Elite, thankfully) and they’ve all unknowingly competed against each other on scraps of my notepaper. Since birth, I have lived in 16 houses and just now I used a bracket to pick those I remember most fondly. Through a love of travel and a job that frequently requires it, I have visited 64 countries and I’m dreading spoiling the symmetry the next time I need to go to a new one.
It can get a little weird, which is why I don’t talk about it a lot. The person sat next to me on a dull recent train journey kept peering over, wondering why I was scribbling down names of lawyers in the O.J. Simpson trial. Christopher Darden won in a thunderous upset by the way, mainly because I felt sorry for him, although if I’d been in a more ruthless mood the win-at-all-costs mindset of Johnnie Cochran might have carried the day.
While some psychologists say anything that assists in decision-making can potentially decrease anxiety and therefore, in theory, make your life a little better, there are no guarantees a bracket will make you a better person.
Shamefully, I told a friend not to invite another buddy to his 50th birthday party because it would have ruined the perfect balance of our eight-person pool tournament.
Things look a little different when they are matched up head to head, which is why a bracket is different from a list. “Do the laundry” might not instantly pop to mind in a compilation of things that need to be done before watching March Madness, but if it can squeeze past “Loading the dishwasher,” outlast “Paying the gas bill,” then it should steam past “Mowing the yard” and win it all in my house this Thursday.
In life, just as basketball, the eternal laws of bracketology remain intact, though. Which is why a 16 seed cannot beat a No.1, why you’ll probably be hurling your tournament bracket at the trash mid-Friday but do it all again next year, and why “Writing a column about an embarrassing habit” just got past “Arranging the bookcase,” in overtime.