Even now, I have vivid memories of my last day of high school. In my mind's eye, I'm cleaning out my locker, and then staring at the emptiness for a few extra beats before slamming it shut for the last time. I'm wandering in the halls with my best friend, blissfully ignoring the bells going off every 50 minutes on schedule because, just today, we're allowed to break the rules. I'm sitting on my desk, swinging my feet, and chatting with my English teacher, Mr. Carr, in a way that makes me feel almost grown up.
It was maybe my favorite day of the whole year. Like the final layer of watercolor, the freedom and lightness I feel seeps (渗透) into the rest of my memories of that day and turns them just a shade rosier.
If the school year hasn't yet ended for you, consider what you can do to make the ending count. Why? Because when it comes to human memory, not all moments are created equal. Instead, our remembered experiences are disproportionately(不成比例地) influenced by peaks(the best moments as well as the worst) and endings(the last moments). Nobel Prizewinner Danny Kahneman, who discovered this phenomenon, called this the peak-end rule. It suggests that our judgment of a past experience is largely based on its most extreme point and its endpoint.
I took advantage of the peak-end rule years ago, when my girls were young enough to want a bedtime story each night. I remember thinking that whatever trouble and stress had occurred that day, I could make the last moments count. I could end on a note of calm and act like the patient mom I hadn't quite managed to be just hours before.
Don't mistake all moments as equal insignificance. There's a reason why yoga classes end with savasana (挺卧式). There's a reason we eat dessert last. Do organize endings carefully. As Pete Carroll might say: Finish strong. Last impressions are especially lasting.
