I have spent the day joking about the imaginary holiday to Copenhagen my wife and I are currently o, which was of course cancelled due to the Covid-19 panpanic. But while I jest about how awesome the holiday is, how next weekend I will make another trip to the Caribbean and how jealous everyone is of my imaginary jet-setting ways, it is actually not a bad strategy.
I read somewhere long ago about this study, that looked at happiness after holidays and found that most people weren't happier after the holiday -which makes sense, since the holiday is over. However, the planning of the holiday itself was when most people were at the happiest, which again makes sense, as the imaginary expectation of how good it is going to feel is in play. I see this much like planning that "awesome" New Year party that never lives up to the hype.
The planning stage will be covered in all the excitement of the unknown and the expectation of what is going to be experienced, before reality sets in and things aren't as good as they were imagined to be. We aren't very good at accurately predicting about how circumstances are going to affect our future feelings and I think that this is especially apparent in the prediction of positives.
The upcoming purchase of a new car or house for example could bring feelings of how good it will feel, but the reality might not support for too far into the future - even though we will often justify the purchase based on a long-term position. People um and ah over their purchases going backwards and forwards until they make a decision they feel good about, then that feeling of getting that new whatever doesn't last very long at all.
Whenever we mentioned what we might do to the people we bought this house from, they would say something like "yes, we planned on doing that" or, "we were thinking of the same" - but they never followed through. This might be because they were flaky, disorganized or didn't have the money available, but I am guessing that in the moment, their planning felt good.
I know that for my wife and I who have been planning extensively in our heads for months on this (years in some cases), we have made decisions that feel great, until we find out they aren't possible, we can't afford it or we will have to put it on hold for one reason or another - but the planning phase felt great.
The human imagination is an incredible tool that can use what knowledge it has available to create entire worlds, possible in reality or not. The trick to feeling good in this case would be to never get out of the planning phase, never face reality. It is no wonder that so many people never follow through on what they say they are going to do, as history has proven to them that the outcome will never be as good as how they imagined it.
I have experienced this often enough in my own creation and have even noted it down mentally that no picture I have ever drawn has rivaled the version of it I imagined - I have never drawn something about which I have said, "that turned out better than I thought". This means that every drawing I have ever made has been - disappointing.
And, i know that it is going to be much the same with the outcomes of our renovations, as what we are planning for, what we see in our minds eye and, what reality will deliver will have different looks and feels to them. We have both experienced this in the planning of our holidays too, where we have spent a great deal of time thinking about what it will be like, only to find out that it wasn't that at all. Sometimes we are pleasantly surprised, often it is just not as bright and color-filled as we had created in our expectations.
Well, obviously the rule for not being disappointed is to not expect anything, but that seems near impossible given the tool we have evolved with, the brilliant imagination which is designed to think into the future about things that are not yet in existence. And once we have generated that view mentally, it becomes a vision in our mind and that means, our emotions are going to kick into gear by default, much like a hungry mouth will salivate at the idea of food - once we have eaten and once we are full, that food no longer holds the same attraction, we are no longer as happy as the moment before eating and the thought of having our hunger satisfied.
I wonder, does this mean that those with an active imagination, those who can visualize well, are more likely to be disappointed by life than those who can't; as those who can't are less able to build a good representation and therefore maybe get less emotionally attached to an expectation of the future? Perhaps this is why so many artists are tortured - they see the future too well and then - reality bites.
I don't know, but I can imagine it being so - and while it is held in my imagination, I expect I am probably right.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
