Originally Posted by holdingontoit
I would much prefer if I had spent my time getting drunk at bars and having sex with women I didn't know. I feel that I wasted my youth deferring my desires in the hope that I would be rewarded in later years. Not having been rewarded in later years, I feel that I should have spent my weekends during college at the bar at the O'Hare Hilton picking up middle aged women on layovers rather than studying to get good grades. I would say I made stupid choices that have now locked me in to running on a treadmill.

IMHO, this is a cognitive trap. People tend to think hindsight is 20/20. I don't think it is. I think one must force themselves to analyze past decisions based on the information they had at the time they made that decision. Looking at things any other way is a recipe for unhappiness.

Originally Posted by holdingontoit
But as you say, for this old man nothing tastes good.

I view this analogy as a loss of perspective. In my youth at thanksgiving dinner, I would laugh when my father would claim he was thankful to be healthy, safe, alive, with shelter and something to eat. These things seemed so trivial to me and suggested to me that his expectations must be pretty low. But when one considers that only a very small percentage of the people who have ever lived get to routinely achieve that state, it seems less trivial.

Said differently, the old man might consider the utility of eating over the utility of the food tasting good. I imagine if the old man hasn't eaten for a while, this is what occurs. This is not to say one can't desire good tasting food, just that one should not lose sight of the fact that bad tasting food is not the lowest things can go.

BTW, I'm not trying to change your mind on things, just throwing out things to consider.


Me 43 BH
MT 43 WW
Married 20 years, No Kids, 2 Difficult Cats
D-day July, 2005
4.5 False Recoveries
Me - recovered
The M - recovered