When I'm interacting with you right now and making sense of your questions or trying to come up with words that you will understand, I'm involved in a very elaborate, complex understanding of what your mind is doing. And this turns out to be a fascinating aspect of the kinds of things humans can accomplish. The story of the brain regions that are involved in social thought actually comes from multiple directions. So one interpretation of this is that humans by default have brains that are interested in other people. That we're sort of primed to think about and interact with others.
Who do we volunteer to run a gruelling half-marathon? Who do we expect to give up sugar, or quit drinking? Who do we demand clears out the garage in the middle of summer?
Ourselves. Mean, right?
Turns out we make demands on our future selves that our present selves would think are unrealistic or unreasonable. And the reason we do it is because our minds are really bad at anticipating the wants and needs we'll have in a week, a month, or a year from now. And that harms our happiness.
Talking before a live audience in Somerville, MA, Dr Laurie Santos and Harvard professor Jason Mitchell explore how we can be kinder to both our present and future selves.
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