90 Seconds

Last weekend, one of my marketing professors assigned my class to watch the Super Bowl. And like any good marketing professor, the assignment was to watch the Super Bowl commercials. I had to choose my picks for the best story, best cinematography, and best dialogue. One of my favorites (and my pick for best cinematography) was New York Life Insurance's :60 commercial, "The Four Types of Love."

The ancient Greeks defined four types of love as follows: philía (love between friends), storgē (familial love), eros (romantic love) and agápē (love in action). See the commercial here:

My other favorite was the :90 Google "Loretta" commercial that had me in literal tears. See here:

I chose this commercial as the one with the best story (just watch and you can see why). I realized as I wrote about it that it was only 90 seconds. One and a half minutes. It made me really feel something, truly feel something, in such a short amount of time. And that feeling inspired today's blog post.

Emotion is felt in a lot of different ways. Physically; imagine your heart feeling heavy when you're sad or your palms sweating when you're scared. Mentally; imagine your feeling of helplessness when you're overwhelmed or those scary thoughts creeping in when you're angry.

But did you know that emotion can really last :90 or less? According to Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard brain neuroanatomist, author and popular Ted Talk speaker, chemical components of emotion will completely dissipate from your blood within :90.

Dr. Taylor says, "If however, I remain angry (or happy or sad) after those 90 seconds have passed, then it is because I have chosen to let that circuit continue to run.” But then how is that possible? Well, our emotions are triggered and fuelled by the story in our minds. If you let yourself stay angry at something past that chemical response time, then expect to... simply... stay angry.

What I'm getting at isn't to tell you that 90 seconds is short and that you should get over your emotions in that time. What I am telling you is to be introspective about what YOU say in those 90 seconds that matter. Don't let someone's circuit run if you can help it.

90 seconds is not a very long time. But it is enough time to change things, like your perceptions of people. In short (no pun intended), 90 seconds is transformative. The "I hate you," that you spew to someone can change things for you and your friendship with that person for a long time. That moment when you brush someone off can affect their impression of you for years to come.

90 seconds is not a long time, we all know that. It feels like forever when you're in the gym or in a boring lecture, but it really isn't. In 90 seconds, those four types of love can be damaged, created, broken entirely. In 90 seconds you can lose your once-special philía with your best friend. All because you were feeling particularly petty that afternoon. In 90 seconds you can damage your storgē with your mother because you acted out and took her for granted when you needed her most. In 90 seconds you can form a bond of eros with a special someone who surprised you. In 90 seconds you can perform an act of agápē, and transform the perceptions people had of you.

90 seconds is the length of a multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercial, yes, but it is also the length of time for so much to happen emotionally. It's the time of a Marvel movie's bonus scene and the time it takes for me to tie my shoes.

90 seconds. One and a half minutes. To create a good circuit and story for the people around you. Good, powerful emotions and memories.

What will you do in 90 seconds?