My justification was always pretty lame.
The Devil on my shoulder would only have to say, But its just for now.
and I would already be on an unstoppable march to Safeway.
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I gain twenty minutes or so of low-brow pleasure.
All the benefit of this choice is gone after that.
The hallmark of the fool is that he borrows fleeting pleasures, at interest, from himself.
Self-discipline is time travel
I have a beautiful banana sitting beside my laptop right now.
No black spots, no green tinge.
Its truly the perfect banana and I know it will fulfill my expectations when I do eat it.
Its sitting about six inches from the edge of my desk and a foot from the front.
I forget that if I eat it now, Future David will have no banana to eat at all.
So I am rewarding Right Now David at the expense of Future David.
Depending on the circumstances, Future David might even benefit more from that banana than Right Now David would.
If it wasnt quite ripe right now, there would be more enjoyment to be gained from it tomorrow.
That moment of choice is where the ants go one way and grasshoppers the other.
Im reminded of the now well-known Marshmallow Experiment, conducted at Stanford in the late 1960s.
The experiment has been reproduced many times since and the footage is hilarious.
There is often much more at stake than bananas and marshmallows.
There are two tricks that I can see to doing it in real-time:
1.
Recognize that right now already is the future.
You are currently experiencing the future of all your Past Selves.
Their choices have come to fruition.
Imagine if someone had already done that for you.
Highly disciplined people are always experiencing advantages inherited from their wise and caring Past Selves.
Recognize the moments when youre about to sell out your Future Self.
These moments often happen when you are in retail establishments.
They often involve televisions or other gratifying electronic devices, including the snooze button of your alarm clock.
They also frequently involve high-fructose corn syrup and disposable packaging.
Future Self is totally, absolutely You as much as youre You right now.
It will be living real moments with real advantages and disadvantages, determined mostly by Right Now Selfs behavior.
When will it see that it already is Future Self?
Later, I suppose.
