Imagining better priorities for yourself

[genxlib]

I really enjoyed this NYT article about setting new priorities in the post Covid world. Maybe I am just a math nerd but he does an interesting job of quantifying our priorities.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/opinion/covid-pandemic-depressing-math.html?smid=em-share

We underestimate future possibilities for the same reason we overestimate the time we have left with those we love: our intuition is not very imaginative. It’s a human instinct to believe the life we’re used to is how things will always be, both the good parts and the bad.

Wallowing in regret carries an implicit assumption that we had agency in the past — that we could have had those other life paths if only we had made better decisions. When we think about the future, though, that feeling of agency often disappears, which can leave us feeling resigned and even hopeless.

But the life we’ll be living 10 years from now will largely be determined not by our past selves but by our present and future selves. If we imagine what we might regret down the road, it’s very much in our hands to do something about it now.

This is the good news about being a human. The time we have left with family and friends is not a law of nature like the weeks we have left to live. It’s a function of priorities and decisions.

Much more at the link. Hopefully you won't hit a paywall.