This popped into my email inbox a few days ago.
“The desire is there, but no time to get out on the water so… Laser boat for sale. Very good condition.”
What occupiers of time would have such pull as to overrule desire? Desire is, after all, a bold, aspirational word. Its use suggests that the seller would be much happier sailing than not and deeply regrets this unfortunate position.
Needing to know more, I stalked the guy on Facebook and LinkedIn. I’ve seen him around. Seems nice. Forties, maybe. Fit. Doesn’t hang with kids, so I don’t suspect he has any. Not sure about a partner. Works in IT for a big firm. I can only guess that the pressures at his job are large but that he makes a nice living and figures sailing can wait.
If you’re like me, you’re probably sick and tired of all the “live in the moment” memes posted on Facebook (of all the places to preach about gumption). And Carpe Diem is so ‘80s. The present is fine. What about the future? I’ve been looking to experts to learn why we make the choices we do at the moment we make them. For example, why answer the boss’s call on a Tuesday evening instead of launching your Laser and sailing with friends? Or why get rid of the Laser in the first place, if sailing it is something you “desire”?
Daniel Gilbert, a social psychologist at Harvard and author of the 2007 book “Stumbling on Happiness” has done the research and concludes:
When you
1.) We tend to imagine an idealized future in the same way that we impose biases on our memories and recall things as better or worse than they actually were (this explains both nostalgia or regret and undue optimism or pessimism).
2.) Since we imagine the future inaccurately, we base our present happiness, or lack thereof, on what we feel and see now. This explains why GM owners will say that GM is better, though it may or may not be, and may buy another even after a terrible experience.
3.) We hold firm to a belief that the future will be better or different, even when we are doing nothing to make it that way.
“The reality of the moment is so palpable and powerful that it holds imagination in a tight orbit from which it never fully escapes” says Gilbert. This is why we might say, “I’ll see the world when I retire,” while not wondering if we realistically will. Will we even make it to retirement? Will our savings support our ambitions? Are our ambitions imagined, too? How can we know? And then we’re doing the same thing we were doing yesterday, and the future isn’t much different from the present. We’re still going to work, and we still think we’re too busy to go to Paris or India, or, for that matter, to go sailing one night a week. Is it any surprise?
To make matters worse, the years reveal, at least to me, that perceptions of the sources of happiness shift as one ages. By the time one reaches their fifth or sixth decade, having worked so hard for so many years, Laser sailing doesn’t make the list as sufficiently restorative or rewarding, or even potentially fun. (Don’t tell that to the Laser sailing grandfather of six “tillerman” at propercourse.blogspot.com). The point is, if the batteries are weak, it may not boot up.
Social science and hindsight aside, there are at least two basic things one can do to avoid having busy-ness overrule desire. It starts quite simply, with a bit of prioritization and re-organization. Take a look at your calendar and count the hours in a week spent on commuting and spectating. Americans, whether we like it or not, now spend more time driving (or riding) to work or school and more time staring at and surfing media than ever in our history. For most of us, our discretionary time vaporizes in traffic and in front of a screen.
I’ve observed that the folks who seem most content, active, and happy in their time firmly follow a few rules. They live near what they do, even if it means giving up space and material things. They often have fewer cars and fewer bedrooms, but they don’t need them or the associated costs. Proximity to work and play buys hours. They also avoid most spectating. This starts by not signing a cable-TV contract, and sometimes it means not having a screen anywhere where work isn’t done. Breaking the habit of watching means creating a new habit of doing.
When a life is organized this way, hours magically appear for things that bring happiness — such as Laser sailing on a Tuesday night. Don’t sell your boat, Mister.
by Saving Sailing author Nicholas Hayes
