Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/777012
JANUARY 25-31, 2017 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM WEEKLY HOROSCOPE ADVICE GODDESS Is It Something I Wed? Two of my girlfriends just got divorced. Both recently admitted to me that they knew they shouldn't have gotten married at the time but did anyway. Just this weekend, another friend — married for only a year and fighting bitterly with her husband — also said she knew she was making a mistake before her wedding. Can you explain why anyone would go through with something as serious and binding as marriage if they have reservations? — Confused It isn't just the allure of the star treatment and wedding swag that leads somebody to shove their doubts aside and proceed down the aisle. Other influences include parental pressure, having lots of married or marrying friends, being sick of dating, and feeling really bad about guests with nonrefundable airline tickets. There's also the notion that "marriage takes work" — meaning you can just put in a little emotional elbow grease and you'll stop hating your spouse for being cheap, bad in bed and chewing like a squirrel. However, it also helps to look at how we make decisions — and how much of our reasoning would more accurately be called "emotioning." We have a powerful aversion to loss and to admitting we were wrong, and this can cause us to succumb to the "sunk cost effect." Sunk costs are investments we've already made — of time, money or effort. The "sunk cost effect" is decision researcher Hal Arkes' term for our tendency to keep throwing time, money or effort into something based on what we've already put in. A way to avoid the sunk cost trap is through what psychologists call "prefactual thinking" — thinking out the possible outcomes before you commit to some risky course of action. But don't just imagine all the awful things that could happen. Write out a list — a detailed list. So, for example, if you sense you could be making a mistake by getting married, don't go all shortcutty, like "get divorced!" Parse out the itty- bitties, like "figure out how the hell to find a decent divorce lawyer"; "get lost on the way to the lawyer's office and stand on the side of the road weeping"; and "start working as the indentured servant of a bunch of sorority girls to pay the lawyer's retainer." Yeah, that kind of detail. Making potential losses concrete like this helps you weigh current costs against the future ones. This, in turn, could help you admit that you and your not-entirely- beloved might have a real shot at happily ever after — if only the one of you in the big white dress would bolt out the fire exit instead of walking down the aisle. Copyright Amy Alkon NEWS OF THE WEIRD by CHUCK SHEPPARD The salary the Golden State Warriors pay to basketball whiz Stephen Curry may be a bargain at $12 million a year, but the economics is weirder about the prices Curry's fans pay on the street for one of his used mouthguards retrieved from the arena floor after a game. One used, sticky, saliva-encased teeth-protector went for $3,190 at one August auction, and SCP Auctions of California is predicting $25,000 for another, expelled during the NBA championship series last June. ESPN Magazine reported "at least" 35 Twitter accounts dedicated to Curry's mouthguard. [ESPN Magazine, 10-31- 2016] Cultural Diversity In parts of Panama, some men still fight for access to women with the ferocity of rutting male elks. The indigenous Ngabe people mostly keep to themselves in rural areas but have surfaced in towns like Volcan, near the Costa Rican border, where in December a reporter witnessed two men fist-fighting to bloody exhaustion on the street in a typical "Mi Lucha" ("my struggle"), with the loser's wife following the winner home. As the custom loses its cachet, only about a third of the time does the wife now comply, according to the website Narratively. (Bonus: It's an often-easy "divorce" for the Ngabe — for a fed-up wife to taunt her husband into a losing fight, or for a fed-up husband to pick a fight and take a dive.) [Narrative.ly, 12- 30-2016] The Continuing Crisis Over a six-year period (the latest measured), drug companies and pharmacies legally distributed 780 million pain pills in West Virginia — averaging to 433 for every man, woman and child. Though rules require dispensers to investigate "suspicious" overprescribing, little was done, according to a recent Drug Enforcement Administration report obtained by the Gazette-Mail of Charleston — even though half of the pills were supplied by the nation's "big three" drugmakers (whose CEOs' compensation is enriched enormously by pain pill production). Worse, year-by-year the strengths of the pills prescribed increase as users' tolerance demands. (West Virginia residents disproportionately suffer from unemployment, coal mining-related disabilities and poor health.) [Gazette- Mail, 12-17-2016] Copyright Chuck Sheppard ARIES - Mar 21/Apr 20 Be yourself instead of hiding behind a persona, Aries. Show your true feelings and you will earn more respect for it. If you meet any resistance, try again. TAURUS - Apr 21/May 21 Taurus, a missed opportunity won't come back to haunt you. You will have plenty of additional opportunities to make another go of things in the days to come. GEMINI - May 22/Jun 21 Gemini, you must find ways to sure up any cracks before you can move ahead. Give it your best effort, but you may want to seek advice from Pisces. CANCER - Jun 22/Jul 22 Cancer, keep forging ahead even if you feel like you are going up against a brick wall. Eventually you will find a solution and a way to overcome this obstacle. LEO - Jul 23/Aug 23 There are a few things you need to tackle early in the week, and then you will likely have the rest of the time for recreation, Leo. Put travel at the top of your to-do list. VIRGO - Aug 24/Sept 22 Virgo, if you experience a scare, it will be short- lived and you will recover quickly. The rest of the week could prove uneventful. Make the most the downtime. LIBRA - Sept 23/Oct 23 Libra, you may be second-guessing an important decision. It is not too late to make a change. Approach the next decision more carefully. SCORPIO - Oct 24/Nov 22 Scorpio, if you have been away from your childhood home for a while, pay a visit. You can visit your old haunts and reminisce about things. SAGITTARIUS - Nov 23/Dec 21 Sagittarius, step out of the shadows for a bit and accept the praise and recognition you deserve this week. It's not being boastful if you accept well wishes of others. CAPRICORN - Dec 22/Jan 20 Capricorn, although you may be looking straight ahead, you are having trouble seeing what is right in front of you. Adjust your perspective and you might be surprised. AQUARIUS - Jan 21/Feb 18 Aquarius, you are quite productive this week, tackling many things on your to-do list. While you are feeling motivated, keep going and you may accomplish even more. PISCES - Feb 19/Mar 20 Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, Pisces. Put others first this week. This selfless approach will be its own reward. Amy Alkon Chuck Sheppard