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What's Up With Me
Having just returned home to Columbus, Ohio, from visiting my parents in New York City for the first time since the pandemic started, I was shocked to see how much they aged. They had COVID twice, and the second time in December of last year was particularly bad: my mom collapsed and couldn’t walk by herself, and
almost had to go to the hospital. She was somewhat better when I visited, but far from her old self from three years ago: she could barely walk up the stairs in her split-level house (which has three floors and a basement). That made me raise the question of what they were thinking when buying their split-level house twenty years ago, when my mom was in her 50s and my dad in his 60s. They acknowledged that it probably wasn’t the wisest decision on their part, as they underestimated their frailty at this age. It reminded me of the all-too-human tendency toward hyperbolic discounting: underestimating the long-term consequences of our decisions. Being aware of hyperbolic discounting, I try to take it seriously, in everything from planting plants that won’t give fruit for a decade to making long-term financial investments.
Where might you be falling for hyperbolic discounting in your personal - and professional - life, and what do you think you can do to address it?
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