This inclination toward short-term thinking causes us to focus on immediate preferences while ignoring long-term aims and consequences. One way to counter it is to try to imagine how we might feel about something in the future. “Good decision-making is tied to our ability to anticipate future emotional states,”60 says Ed Batista, an executive coach who teaches at Stanford University. “We need to vividly envision ourselves in a future scenario.” So if, for example, an opportunity comes your way and you’re trying to decide whether to take it, consider this question shared by writer Rob Walker:
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