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200,000 years ago,
on the African grasslands,
there exists a smart and almost hairless Great Ape species.
Back then,
no one was worrying about obesity
but rather famine.
Once there was food,
especially meat and fruits
everybody tried to stuff himself
just in case there would be no food at all the next day
The human brain, thus,
was programmed to take care of only short-term crises,
not long-term goals.
200,000 years later,
in our modern society
we often have to suffer a bit in the short term
in order to achieve sustainable, long-term benefits.
Exercise hard now
and you’ll have that beach body for the summer.
Leave your beloved bed
and go to class now
and you can buy your own private jet in 20 years’ time.
However,
the total length of existence of our modern society
is just a blink in the evolution of the humankind.
Our brains,
therefore,
could not evolve fast enough
to catch up with the aforementioned need to think in long term.
Economics calls this tendency of the brain
to choose little short-term rewards over big long-term benefits
“temporal discounting”.
When we choose to spend time on facebook
instead of doing homework,
or to stay up all night partying
instead of going to bed early,
we are discounting time.
If you feel lazy today,
you are definitely not the alone
- many people in the world are feeling the same.
Many companies have been taking advantage of
their customers’ temporal discounting tendency;
for example,
by providing the option to pay for a brand new TV or a super cool scooter
with an installment plan
Consumers cannot resist the immediate satisfaction of owning the new item and decide to purchase it,
despite being aware that in the end,
the sum of the installments they would have paid
would exceed the listed price of the item now.
Want to know more about temporal discounting?
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and stay tuned for our next videos! Till next time!