Transforming your present joy appraisal into the long-term view

The amount of joy that you encounter in this life will very much depend on how much you learn to appraise value through long-term rational calculation rather than short-term emotional experience.

Your ability to appraise and choose long-term rational value will depend on the wisdom you develop and the time you take to actively think about and reflect upon the past, present, and future.

Your ability to experience anticipatory pleasure can be changed, and as you change it, you will increase the audacity and timescales of the goals you are willing to attempt while experiencing much more joy along the way.

Humans, by default, assign enormous preference to the present, even at the expense of the future. It is human nature to prefer shortterm pleasure to long-term progress.

Test how well you are considering the future by injecting the following questions into every decision you make:

1. What timeframe am I considering when making this choice? It is rare to consider the effects of a decision over a lifetime, let alone for subsequent generations.
2. Would I change my decision if the long-term consequences I expect occurred in the next 24 hours? Many decisions would be made differently if the decider valued their future as much as they value their present.

Much of what we see as an individual’s vices are really just an attenuated ability to register the value of future reward in the present. For example, researchers have shown that people with eating disorders do not experience pleasure from looking ahead to future events.¹

Through repeated iterations of setting and attaining goals, you will lengthen the time horizons of your experience of joy. With every iteration from planning to achievement of goals, you will gain increased evidence that long-term progress in your purpose provides greater joy than short-term pleasure.