HUMANS MISESTIMATE THE FUTURE
Humans misestimate what will make them happy in the future - and then they get there and viola! they are not happy. It pays to become knowledgeable about what makes one happy. This actually also shifts the effect of actual pain, putting it in its place, lower down on the scale, where we can still be happy.
WE HANDLE LIFE BETTER IN THE FUTURE THAN WE THINK!
As discussed in the Fear section, we misestimate our ability to handle the future plus we blow up what the future level of pain might be, as if we were just fearful children afraid of a big bogeyman - and making him real and really, really big.
So many people do that with future physical pain (along with their fear of Death).
And they experience needless pain right now!
How much of a waste of life is that!!!!
THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE INDICATES WE'LL STILL BE OK
Studies indicate that when we experience physical pain we are still just about as happy as other people. The problem is that we "experience" the thought of how terrible future pain will be such that we end up being unhappy right now. Bringing the experience into the now is not smart, of course. But also it is not smart to believe it will be far worse than what it is likely to be. We end up, needlessly and uselessly, bringing it into the now and then also making it really big and terrible. In truth, you'll be just fine overall.
The image we've built up about the last days is especially exaggerated, as there is actually very little felt, as the body automatically compensates by diminished feeling, plus medical care makes sure we're comfortable. It will be a minor blip, a very small part of life. (If it is 10 days and one lives to be 70, it will be 4 ten thousandths of one's life: .0004; .01 = 1%. This is a minuscule, minuscule part of life.
SPEND SOME TIME LEARNING, FOR A BIG PAYOFF
The learning has huge payoffs in two ways.
1. One's experience now is greatly altered by not experiencing that fear anymore.
2. One learns how to live an actually better life in old age.
Not a bad payoff per amount of effort spent learning. See Aging Well.
LET'S GET "REAL" ABOUT THIS!
A common, and mistaken, belief.
A major factor: “People often believe that happiness is a matter of circumstance, that if something good happens, they will experience long-lasting happiness, or if something bad happens, they will experience long-term misery,” he says. “But instead, people’s happiness results more from their underlying emotional resources — resources that appear to grow with age. People get better at managing life’s ups and downs, and the result is that as they age, they become happier — even though their objective circumstances, such as their health, decline.”
Researchers examined 500 Americans age 60 to 98 who live independently and had dealt with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental health conditions or a range of other problems. The participants rated their own degree of successful aging on scale of 1-10, with 10 being best.
Despite their ills, the average rating was 8.4.
"People are more resilient than they think they can be, and can get through things that they probably would have never thought they could," Peter Ubel, a University of Michigan professor of internal medicine and psychology and leader of the study. "The fact that people seem to be so poor at estimating the effect of illness on mood calls into question some of the ways we use such quality-of-life estimates in policy making and research."
WORRY IS NOT OF ANY BENEFIT
Unless one really thinks more deeply, one goes along with the primitive assumption that worry accomplishes something. But if a person has a concern pop up, as they most often do randomly, he/she can merely note itt and decide if it is something to do something about (or note it down for a particular date to do something about). Otherwise, acknowledge it by saying "there is no need to have this concern now as there is nothing to do with it, so I'll just let it pass. I have other things I can put in my mind and use my mind for."
ABOUT OLD AGE AND HANDLING IT WELL
"Everybody wants to have a long life but nobody wants to be old. "
"It can be a time of great joy."
