We are all rational?

I don't claim to pioneer a tradition of applying rational choice models- I have far more successful, serious and older economists as models to look up to- Levitt, Landsburg, Becker and many others.  Yet, I was inspired by them to consider blogging about what I see around me. While they may offer better explanations to the events I observe, they cannot possibly theorize what I see around me in my cultural context and everyday life. Therefore, I have attempted to do just that and I encourage the readers of my blog to do the same. 

It seems impossibly absurd, never mind controversial to suggest that we are all rational. Some among us spend millions on marriages, smoke cigarettes, drive recklessly and all of us take risks we're not supposed to take like traveling without a ticket on a train or skipping a traffic signal while driving, all fully aware of the consequences. In all of the above cases, we're perfectly rational creatures balancing risks and returns, comparing costs and benefits and doing things only if they are worth the risk. We sometimes do it badly, I admit. We sometimes think the benefit of an extra cigarette is greater than the cost of cancer (seemingly an irrational choice), yet this is not an example of how irrational we are but how rational we are that we at least did the calculation. We don't always do this calculation on calculators (in fact, it would be hilariously stupid of us to calculate the probability of meeting with an accident using calculators while driving), but rather we do it in our heads, just like tennis players anticipate where their opponents are going to hit without ever using game theory (maybe their coaches do use it!).  We being rational is natural to us humans (and also animals who successfully hunt and dodge hunters). What makes us irrational (if that's even possible) is that we fail to apply this rationalism to everything we do and everything others do. 

Paraphrasing an old saying that everything happens for a reason, I'll sum up my first post this way- We believe that everything we do has a reason behind it, a rationale, or else we simply wouldn't do it or we would do something else or do the same thing differently! Apply it to every creature you see around and you will realize that those creatures are doing what they're doing because they know its rational! Let me start with why people spend fortunes on marriages and why the system of dowries is more than just an old tradition!