Smartest $1,000 advice from Dan S. Kennedy, in 5 short lines...

Hi Mr. Schutz,
It depends which analogy you attach to the poem (lesson).

Let's use a relevant one -

The whole story is about an IMer who's biggest error is that while learning marketing and business, they keep getting sucked into buying 'systems' that promise to accelerate their success, but in fact actually hinder it (a common story on IM forums web-wide).

In chapter one they simply make the error.

In chapter two, they are wiser - they realise that nothing good came from the previous purchase, but they don't yet fully understand the emotional process that they are being pulled into, nor the intentions of the marketers who are 'seducing' them.

They are still looking for the holy grail for success and can easily enter a state of denial during that emotional buying state that they enter in moments of weakness (usually after one of their self-propelled attempts at advancement seems to have failed) while reading sales copy.

As they click the buy button and reach for the credit card and their brain tries to justify the risk by only focusing on the more convincing aspects of the pitch while blanking out the more questionable aspects (and most likely focuses on the perceived benefits which have been suggested in the copy) they are simply buying the emotional state which tells them that - 'the search is over - THIS product is going to propel me to greatness without any more pain or suffering' -

(this is the likely thought (emotion) which is ALL that they will get for their money from a product that will probably remain unopened and unused - as explained by many others here, often the product remains unused because the person enjoys hanging onto the emotional state derived from making the purchase, whereas seeing the product for what it is (useless) will remove the emotion and replace it with a negative one, IE the dream is destroyed and harsh reality is felt instead (I have to work??!!))

- at which point they are in FULL denial - the previous fall into the hole is not forgotten, but the person has convinced themselves that this product is different - this is not a hole disguised as a springboard, it really is a springboard to success.

Hence - they are pretending not to see the hole, they are seeing the springboard.

Chapter three is where they make the same error, but start accepting responsibility which then morphs into chapter four where they are sick of having to accept responsibility for continually making the same mistake - eventually (hopefully) logic and experience overpower emotion, but as explained in chapter five, often the person accepts that even these two powerful aspects are no match for the power of emotional need and the best way to avoid the conflict is to avoid it altogether.

Which might explain the many other type of comments we see here about the joy of an empty inbox after a mass unsubscription fest IE - taking a different street with less holes.#

You can also see many aspects of this process in totally different analogies - EG - have you ever come across someone who had such a bad experience that instead of facing the same challenge and conquering it, they take the easy way out and avoid it altogether? For example, relationships>permanent singleness, or self employment>lifetime employee?

Often this is wise, but only for those who don't have the capacity to learn about/understand/control/adapt to the emotional nature of human decision making - IE - the majority.