[joe_the_user]

Maybe...

But given that she was really motivated to master a challenge that was really hard, perhaps, just perhaps she justified her efforts by convincing herself that the results were really worthwhile.

So perhaps the policy is just, exactly right. After all, you don't see a lot of fat happy native born talking about living the American Dream (I hear them saying "you have to asleep to believe it" but as we see, there are other alternatives)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini#Influence