Like the urge to scratch my chin, I’m not satisfied if I hold back. I have a few steps for what to do about choice. I took my lens to the issue to see what I could. Find the other steps here.
Regret Less
When regret becomes so pronounced it poisons decisions, we should make an effort to minimize it. For wordsmiths, (that means me) it’s easy to be imprecise. I regret not going to that DAO meetup. I regret buying into Luna + Jade Protocol. Not doing research, I regret, not saving my earnings, I definitely do- overexaggerating about things we did or didn’t do come naturally to a word stretcher. Here’s some advice I took to handle real regret (I was a dolphin til' I liquidated more than half my account during the bull):
- Adopting the standards of a satisficer rather than a maximizer
- Reducing the number of options we consider before making a decision
- Practicing gratitude for what is good in a decision rather than focusing on our disappointment with what’s bad
Shopping online is a multiple-choice question exam. Sounds simple. That line of thinking would normally be correct if there were only four options in shopping. Remove the outlier, highlight the two similar answers, and you follow the process of elimination. With so many brands, colorways, seasons, styles- I fill my cart with 25 items, then don’t buy anything. Glad there’s nobody watching; if I was in Macy’s, I would tick off store associates with the shopping carts I left full, lying around.
I can’t sing. I can hardly write. I claim to post social media but keeping a daily blog is among my greatest challenges. Yet even I feel moved to hum along listening to Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. The mastery there to evoke a feeling of love through sound ranks among life’s most valuable experiences. They sing about her. Their sound, that feeling- it’s to describe this. And I stumbled on the way here. It’s a fact. I am not proud of some places I have been and people I met. The mistakes I made along the way to this point are small potatoes. The choice to appreciate who I have now is deliberate and liberating.
Anticipate Adaptation
The most dangerous thing for a human being is to get complacent. Manga, like most written word, has a flair for drama and ring of truth. Adaptation allows us to handle a surplus of sensor info, like sunglasses at the beach. Adaptation kept me together in tough times. I didn’t enjoy sleeping on the floor of my aunt’s house. Commuting to school and maintaining an address to be in a program was not easy. On the other hand, adaptation numbed my sense of pleasure in the worst way. I don’t exercise half as much as I should, but I’m on this “hedonic treadmill”.
People get used to things as the exp continues- sights and sounds don’t pop as much. Perceptual adaptation , as it’s known, also takes place on the scale of pleasure. I personally let the month of November last year go to waste. To wake up and see paper profits at increasing levels, felt like a dream at first. I’d send a few tokens to the exchange, deposit in my wallet, and buy chicken strip dinners and a side of tartar sauce. Today, I might go broke(r) trying that presently. On those rich days, I don’t think I understood the relationship, how we were a young couple. Takeout lunch became the usual, til fasting became my new normal.
If it’s no good either way, what can you do? Remember, remember. I remember. I remember. I take photos, that’s how. Keep in mind, the glitter of gold fades. Things lose their shine, so appreciate the good it does while it does. My PC isn’t the latest in parts, but I put the pieces together. Helps me deliver my thoughts and sight just as good as the day I built it.
Adaptation also runs another a long game. The “satisfaction treadmill” is the combination punch. We might grow numb to perks, but we might also stop feeling well with what we have, so it means less. We beat the urge to over-expect and underappreciate with these steps:
- As you buy new food, acknowledge that the taste won’t be as good as the time you were most hungry. New clothes or shoes- a new video game won’t be the same fun as when you had friends and sibs to play against.
- Spend less time looking for the perfect thing (maximizing), so that you won’t account the time spent against the good feeling from your pick. I’m getting better. My progress shines at dinner tables when I have the money. I use the meal deal lens; I reason over the value, how much dough for how much bread to eat. Then, I look for my tastes; fried, sandwiches typically, and a counteract the unhealthy with a side salad. I know what I want with no questions or second glances by the time to take my order.
- Remind yourself of how good things actually are instead of focusing on how they’re less good than they were at first. “It’s a holiday in Cambodia! It’s tough kid, but it’s life!” Synchronicity or not, the Dead Kennedys can rock. I don’t forget things can improve because I have seen rooftop highs. I stood on mountaintop highs. I smoked in city penthouse highs. The experiments were successful. With consistency, a creator can thrive. The hard part is keeping it.
