I have never heard the saying “losses loom larger than gains”
until studying these lecture slides. This saying simply means that the loss of
something is more dissatisfying than the gain of it. For example, if a kid loses
a candy bar he got on Halloween, he will be thinking about it more and be more dissatisfied
than he was satisfied when he got it in the first place. This is known as loss aversion.
To an extreme, if someone’s house is foreclosed on, they will be more distraught
than they were happy when they got the house. I don’t think that people realize
how hard scaling back can be. You get so used to having certain things and certain
luxuries that you often take it for granted. People underestimate how
emotionally difficult it can be to downsize and live a more minimalistic lifestyle.
These slides also discussed procrastination. Procrastination
is a delay I goal-oriented behavior despite knowing that one will be worse off
as a result. Most students probably have at least one experience with this.
Personally, I tend to procrastinate assignments that I may not necessarily
understand or that seem poorly explained by the professor. This is a bad habit
because it usually leaves me scrambling the night before to clarify the instructions
and produce a good assignment that is worthy of a good grade. Thankfully, I have
learned to stop this behavior over the years. Once I came to college and had
the goal of entering graduate school to become an occupational therapy, I realized
that I can’t afford to procrastinate anymore.
Reading your response, I am glad that I am not the only person who once procrastinated and then over time learned to stop this behavior. This class has truly been a test on whether or not we procrastinate and how motivated we are to get the work done on time. I also liked that you used examples that people from different walks of life would understand. From the candy bar with a child to the home with an adult, incentives are everywhere.
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