Psychologists and economists love to talk about the notion of two selves: present self and future self. It's a nice way to explain the tendency to have one preference about the future, but a very different preference when the future becomes the present.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the discrepancy between our present and future selves, illustrating how our preferences can change over time.
In this quote, Daniel Goldstein discusses the concept of the 'present self' and the 'future self,' emphasizing how individuals often make choices that align with their aspirations for the future, yet when those future moments become the present, their preferences may shift. This reflects the complexities of human decision-making and the struggle to align immediate desires with long-term goals, often leading to conflict and regret.
In practice
In a talk about long-term planning, one could use this quote to illustrate the importance of aligning short-term actions with long-term goals.
While people argue with one another about the specifics of Freud's work and blame him for the prejudices of his time, they overlook the fundamental truth of his writing, his grand humility: that we frequently do not know our own motivations in life and are prisoners to what we cannot understand. We can recognize only a small fragment of our own, and an even smaller fragment of anyone else's, impetus.
People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.
The unconscious mind is decidedly simple, unaffected, straightforward and honest. It hasn't got all of this facade, this veneer of what we call adult culture. It's rather simple, rather childish It is direct and free.
Sometimes the personalities at the helm of the madness industry are, with their drives and obsessions, as mad in their own way as those they study. And that relatively ordinary people are, more and more, defined by their maddest edges.
We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.
There is no such thing as a pure introvert or extrovert. Such a person would be in the lunatic asylum.
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