Using Backwards Anticipation to Make Better Purpose Decisions

A good friend of mine recently had a decision to make. He learned about an event happening in New York City that would have been very meaningful for him to attend. However, he only learned about it the day before it was happening. Attending the event would have meant many hours of travel and a very late night as well as disrupting the plans he already had for that day. .

In deciding what to do, my friend estimated how much he would get out of being at the event versus the difficulty of getting there. Both were at about the same level, so this made for a difficult decision. We can illustrate this type of cost-benefit analysis as follows:

There’s another factor that could have been added to this decision: the experience of the event over time. At their peak levels, i.e., during the travel and being at the event, the costs and benefits were of similar magnitude. However, in the weeks and months following the event, their levels would have diverged markedly. 

Yes, the hassle of getting into New York City is real, and my friend would have faced various expenses and frustrations. At the end of it, he would have returned home exhausted, and he had to be at work the next morning. However, it would have only taken a few days back for him to catch up on his sleep and for the difficulties to fade from memory

In contrast, the meaningfulness of the event would have continued on long after. In the coming weeks and months, my friend would have looked back on the event and valued having been there.

The half-life of meaning typically far exceeds that of hardships.

One endures; the other is fleeting.

We can illustrate how time might factor into this decision as follows:

On the day of the event, levels of meaning and difficulty are still about the same. Over time, they separate. We often miss this in our calculations because we’re prone to what Daniel Kahneman calls “temporal discounting.” With it, we undervalue future consequences relative to immediate ones.

Regret fits in here. We often regret not doing something that would have mattered to us because at the time it felt too difficult. In retrospect, we realize that we chose the lesser option. We can add regret to the illustration as follows:

How can we make better decisions in this type of situation? One approach is to project ourselves forward in time and look back. Here’s what I mean. With an upcoming decision, typically, we ask ourselves what we want for the future. 

What if, instead, we pretend that we’re already in the future? We can imagine that we faced the decision awhile ago, and we ask ourselves what we wish we would have done. This reframing–let’s call it “backwards anticipation”–implicitly brings our experiences over time into the decision, and it allows us to more accurately gauge the long-term effects of our decisions.  

For example, my friend could have pretended that the event had already happened months ago. Looking back on it, he could assess whether he now wished that he had gone to it or stayed home.

What did my friend end up doing? He didn’t go. It just felt like too much at the time. After the fact, he learned from others that the event had gone very well, and the next time that we spoke, he told me that he wished that he had gone.

Updates

• Next semester, the Life Purpose Lab will be offering workshops specifically for international students. They frequently attend our general workshops, and so we are going to offer a workshop just for them. Being in a new country, apart from family and friends, and launching a career raise numerous issues of meaning and purpose.

• Last week, we attended my nephew’s wedding, and it was beautiful. During it, I was struck by how much of what happens at weddings is designed to emphasize the meaning of the couple, their union, and the people supporting them. Weddings are meaning-making events. Maybe that’s part of what makes them so special.

• What do you think of this essay having multiple illustrations? Thought I’d try something new. 

• Thank you, Susan, for your help in writing this essay!

• When you read this essay, Substack (the hosting platform) might ask you to donate money to me. This is their request, not mine. Their business model is to take a small position of such donations. 

• Any feedback or suggestions for these essays? If so, please let me know. Bradleywrightphd@gmail.com