A WORLD OF HURRIED PEOPLE

People tend to value more to get a reward now, even if it is less, than to wait for a while and get something greater in the future. We do not like to wait, and big brands know it

Have you been thinking why we are always in such a hurry?

We sleep little, we eat in a hurry, we buy rushed, we drive in a hurry, we study in a hurry, multitasking in the office, permanent zapping on tv, in the car-audio, etc. WE ARE GOING TO EXPLODE.

The year passes quickly, the days passes quickly, the hours ... The pace is frenetic.

But who hurries us?

Economists say that "people prefer to go faster or slower, ie choose more short or long term, based on what we call time preference's rate.

And it is proven that, on average, people tend to value more to get a reward now, even if it is less, than to wait for a while AND GET SOMETHING GREATER IN THE FUTURE.

We do not want to wait ... we want everything now.

You can study for a 10, but you want to get rid of the test soon, study less and pass with a 7.

You can choose to wait a week, compare prices and models, and buy the new mobile phone ... but no ... you get hooked with the first offer that is fairly interesting to you, because you want it now.

And so, it would seem that with everything.

And while the great English economist J.M. Keynes said: "in the long term we are all dead" ... the abuse of the short term also hurts you.

The phenomenon is complex. Influence our primitive brain, postmodern life, new technologies, corporate neuromarketing and biases, among others.

LET'S GO BY PARTS

Economics Nobel Laureate D. Kahneman (psychologist) says that the brain has two decision-making systems, one fast (system 1) and one slow (system 2).

The fast system comes from a primitive adaptation to the dangers of nature; It is emotional, metaconscious, very useful to save problems in the day to day life.

The slow system is the ideal for many decisions, that of reflection, but each time we use it less.

The postmodern life leads us to abuse system 1 (the fast one), and therefore lowers our quality of deciding, ergo our happiness.

That is ... biologically our brain is prepared for fast and metaconscious decisions, however we abuse them.

Result: anxiety, anguish, depression, decisions below expectations, anxiolytics and antidepressants.

Our happiness lies in the achievements made from our decisions. We take on average between 1,000 and 2,500 decisions a day, BUT EVERY TIME MORE FASTER!! Happiness or inner satisfaction decays.

BUT WHO PUSH US TO ACCELERATION?

CAUSE 1: ALL TO ONE  CLICK´S DISTANCE

Physical life is turning into virtual life. With the mobile phones everything is a click away. Until 20 years ago, people read "a newspaper", read "a magazine", went to "a tourist agency" to buy the trip, went to "a the bank" to do some financial operations.

Now it's all there on the mobile, side by side, and on top of sending us permanent notifications, which also interest us all, since they are elaborated by web search analysis software that tracks all our interests.

In this way, anxiety explode reading apps's notifications, plus multitasking at full in the office ... is 1 pm o'clock and we are burned ... and we still have half a working day left.

THE CONTRACTORS IN THE CHEST, NECK OR STOMACH TO FULL.

But there's more ... the madness is still outside of work, with the thousands of series of TV streaming to choose from, the tireless zapping of the music streaming from the car or the cable channels ... all in a quickly mode, accelerated.

We have everything within reach ... it is the "NEXT phenomenon": we do not enjoy the moment because we are thinking about what is coming, what is next.

CAUSE 2: CORPORATIONS´S ADVANCED MARKETING 

Big brands induce us to the anxiety of system 1 (fast): companies want to sell us anyway, and at increasingly higher prices (symbolic product differentiation) and know how to do it, with the modern Neuromarketing and Emotional Marketing.

The offer is just for today ... Everyone wants you to choose soon, without thinking too much. ALL SYSTEM 1, NO SYSTEM 2.

Smells, colors, flavors, lighting, visual impact ... EVERYTHING THOUGHT TO FASCINATE OUR BRAIN REWARD SYSTEM. Big companies know what impacts us in the brain. All armed for you to buy fast, hurry, little reflexive.

IT IS ALL MADE TO DECIDE QUICKLY ... AND NOT ALWAYS IN FAVOR OURS.

Then we have: RAPID DECISION BY NATURE (system 1 prehistoric) + ACCELERATED / INDUCED (postmodern life, hyperconnectivity and marketing of corporations) = CONFLICT /  ANGUISH.

At night we have trouble sleeping ...

• UNHAPPINESS 1: I could have done better, more reflective, but I can't.
• UNHAPPINESS 2: postmodern life creates us desires that we do not reach to satisfy, FOR LACK OF MONEY, BUT ALSO TIME. And there comes more anguish.

SYSTEM 2 (SLOW) PASSES US INVOICE ... THE REMORSE AND THE ANGUISH TO CHOOSE ALWAYS IN A HURRY, INDUCED AND TOO EMOTIONAL.

Proliferate chronic stress, panic attacks, depressions and other postmodern pathologies.

The panic attack is horrible. You feel that you leave ... I have suffered it myself.

Yoga classes, meditation, mindfulness, gyms, etc. they grow as never before ... GOOD

They also increases bill laboratories with anxiolytics and antidepressants like never before. BAD

People are very accelerated, and each time with more existential voids for an induced consumerism, which does not make it completely happy.

ADVICE 1: THE FIREMAN

WE TAKE AIR. WE BREATH DEEP. DO NOT LET YOURSELF BE PUSHED ON FOR SELLERS, APPS, etc.

When you feel on the edge, ask for permission and go to a closed place (a bathroom for example), you breathe deeply ... until you relax.

Let your jaws loose, your neck ... the air circulates and relaxes.

Turn off the phone 1 or 2 hours.

But this is the fireman ... extinguish fire, the real solution is deeper.

ADVICE 2: SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Reflect deeply where you want to go ... and what is really important to get there ... the rest is secondary, so we do not let ourselves hurry for what does not lead us to anything important, so we separate straw from wheat.

Meditation is a good way for it. Psychotherapy too.

When we have more or less clear the way ... we will stop giving so much importance to the context that presses us for "everything fast". We will know how to balance systems 1 and 2.

It's not easy ... I know. But the context is not going to change, hyperconnectivity and neuromarketing are going to be more and more powerful ... we have to change, to adapt and be happy.

SUMMARIZING

• We decide 90% of our life quickly by nature, emotional and over biased, but the current world (hyperconnectivity and neuromarketing) makes us abuse this accelerated path with the other 10%.
• We feel sad for deciding sub-optimally, and also anguish and unhappiness for having more desires than we can reach.
• But luckily there are solutions ...
• PREPARE FOR THIS JUNGLE: brain better feed and rested, self-understanding, clarity of objectives, STEP ON THE BALL.

Like those great soccer players, with 50,000 fans screaming in the stands, they knew how to give the pass right at the right moment ...

The 50,000 fans are the 50,000 brands and apps inducing us to consume them.

We have to know how to choose which, in a more reflective way, as such talented soccer players.

Then ... " animate to decide relaxed, without anxiety, with wisdom", your decision better taken, more reflective, will change your world, your happiness ... and that of those around you!!

Author: Sebastián Laza

Sebastián Laza is a Behavioral Economist, specialized in the interrelation between Cognitive Neuroscience and Decision Making. Also, is the author of NEUROECONOMICS: THE DISRUPTIVE PATH: https://www.amazon.com/NEUROECONOMICS-DISRUPTIVE-PATH-Sebastian-Laza/dp/1718177844/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=