I've been thinking about this for a few days and I have absolutely no idea why this is, so I thought I would ask you all for some input on this.
This past Monday I was trying to decide between doing two things in the evening: reading some more of The Idiot or watching Monday Night Football. In the long run I knew that reading would bring me more pleasure and satisfaction than watching football, especially since the game probably wasn't going to be very good, but it was still such a strong temptation to watch the game even though I knew that I would be more satisfied by reading. On this particular occasion I ended up reading, but only because I realized what was going on and took the time to think through what was happening.
I would like to know if anyone can relate to this and has any idea as to why we decide to do the thing that we know won't satisfy us long term. Sure it might bring us short term satisfaction, but if we know ahead of time that something else will bring us more satisfaction in the long run, why do the other thing?
Sometimes we have obligations that take us away from doing the things that will bring us that long term satisfaction, but those are not the situations I am talking about here. What I am talking about here is those situations where there are no obligations that prevent you from doing something. I am talking about those situations where there is nothing preventing you from choosing either one.
This is what is called time-preference. A higher rate of time-preference means we will tend to favor short-term happiness when it conflicts with long-term happiness. People always act in the present, so if we favor present satisfaction over long-term satisfaction and they conflict, we will choose the present satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteWe could say that discipline is forcing yourself to favor long-term satisfaction over short-term satisfaction.