Before, I was a person who prided myself on succeeding at marshmallow tests. This caused me to frame work as a thing I want to succeed on, and work too hard.
Then, I read Meaningful Rest and Replacing Guilt, and realized that often times I was working later to get more done that day, even though it would obviously be detrimental to the next day. This makes the reverse marshmallow test dynamic very intuitively obvious.
Now I am still a person who prides myself on my marshmallow prowess, but hopefully I’ve internalized an externality or something. Staying up late to work doesn’t feel Good and Virtuous, it feels Bad and like I’m knowingly Goodharting myself.
Note that this all still boils down to narrative-stuff. I’m nowhere near the level of zen that it takes to Just Pursue The Goal, with no intermediating narratives or drives based on self-image. I don’t think this patch has been particularly moved me towards that either, it’s just helpful for where I’m currently at.
My best guess at mechanism:
Before, I was a person who prided myself on succeeding at marshmallow tests. This caused me to frame work as a thing I want to succeed on, and work too hard.
Then, I read Meaningful Rest and Replacing Guilt, and realized that often times I was working later to get more done that day, even though it would obviously be detrimental to the next day. This makes the reverse marshmallow test dynamic very intuitively obvious.
Now I am still a person who prides myself on my marshmallow prowess, but hopefully I’ve internalized an externality or something. Staying up late to work doesn’t feel Good and Virtuous, it feels Bad and like I’m knowingly Goodharting myself.
Note that this all still boils down to narrative-stuff. I’m nowhere near the level of zen that it takes to Just Pursue The Goal, with no intermediating narratives or drives based on self-image. I don’t think this patch has been particularly moved me towards that either, it’s just helpful for where I’m currently at.