When I was younger and started thinking about something I wanted to do, like, say, asking out a girl, I never performed the necessary backward induction. I would always envision what the future would be like when the girl said yes and how great it would be. It was so bad that I would try to plan, but seemed to be incapable of actually doing it because I spent so much time thinking about how great the future was going to be. In reality, I didn’t know what to say and the girl said no, so I concluded that envisioning the future was a bug, and tried to fight it.
I guess It’s lucky that I never completely got rid of this tendency, and in the mean time I’ve become much better at planning, (though doing any planning is an improvement, so this means little). Now it’s time to make a conscious effort at cultivating these positive emotions and see what happens.
When I was younger and started thinking about something I wanted to do, like, say, asking out a girl, I never performed the necessary backward induction. I would always envision what the future would be like when the girl said yes and how great it would be. It was so bad that I would try to plan, but seemed to be incapable of actually doing it because I spent so much time thinking about how great the future was going to be. In reality, I didn’t know what to say and the girl said no, so I concluded that envisioning the future was a bug, and tried to fight it.
I guess It’s lucky that I never completely got rid of this tendency, and in the mean time I’ve become much better at planning, (though doing any planning is an improvement, so this means little). Now it’s time to make a conscious effort at cultivating these positive emotions and see what happens.