OBG: b&b106 Seize the day or look before you leap? Why we hate to plan

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This week’s Oldie-but-Goodie:

This show was inspired by a Cracked podcast Dyalekt and I were listening to during our many hours of driving on Famous Sayings (that aren’t true). So many of those sayings were either about taking risks or being really careful, being spontaneous or planning everything.

And when we were real with ourselves, we realized that we preferred to seize the day too. So why is it that we hate to plan, or more importantly, that we don’t end up following through with them even if we do plan?

We have some ponderings and solutions for you this week on how to both seize the day and look before you leap!

Episode Highlights:

Pam: The idea of people having more and longer regret for being virtuous than giving in to a vice.

Dyalekt: We regret our inaction, and the more time passes we regret inaction way more than we regret action. We would often will regret action in the moment…but in the long run you remember more the emotion of spending time.

Dyalekt: If you, not only in your personal past but in the past of the people you came from have a history of not getting that second marshmallow, than you’re gonna go for the first. Pam: That’s why generational poverty is a real thing. The Marshmallow Experiment.

Dyalekt: I very much will find myself in good positions and not know how to move forward. Pam: Right, there’s this fear that it could all just be taken away tomorrow. Dyalekt: Not a fear, an expectation. I think fear often drives us to action, and anticipation of inevitability often keeps us in our place.

Pam: A lot of people like to plan because they think about their future self, and they put themselves in the place of their future self and say “Okay, one day I’m gonna have all of this stuff so let me plan to get there.” And then when they actually have to make a decision it’s actually you dealing with your present self and saying “Okay, now I have to actually make the moves to get there.” And that’s usually where the roadblock is for people.

Pam: The difference between a goal and a system is a goal has all of these emotions that are tied to it…It’s this idea of disappointment and failure and I’m not gonna be able to get the thing I want anyway, so let me just do this thing now. Like having a goal to save a certain amount of money by a certain date. If you don’t hit it, a lot people will just say screw it, I’m just gonna spend the money on whatever I want now…The system takes out the emotion that we know we’re gonna have about these things that we want to achieve, and instead puts you in a place where you’re just doing the thing.