Procrastinating and Learning from Our Mistakes

 Pleasure sometimes comes from very unexpected places. For example, I did not expect that playing chess would become such a high-pleasure activity, one that would pull me in to the point that I am almost addicted. Chess always seemed like such a boring game: pieces to move, the challenge of looking for an attack strategy, and the constant fear of being (perhaps inevitably if dealing with a stronger opponent) mated. Well, knowing that one's moves are suboptimal likely doesn't help.

Now, playing bullet chess has become an almost highly addictive process. I've been addicted before, and tonight I just played several games of bullet against the computer because I found it addictive. Perhaps the addictive nature of the game lies in the fact that there is a lot of clicking involved, as well as the certainty of having to make a lot of quick decisions, a factor that is not present to the same degree in slower, classical chess.

In today's case, I guess one could say that I was procrastinating for studying for a test. While I did study today, I certainly don't feel prepared fully for tomorrow. In fact, I guess one could also say that I feel regretful for playing so much bullet chess during the time that I was planning to study. If I were to analyze my mental state right now, in addition to regret, I feel a sense of tiredness, just as one does after watching television for an extended period of time, or playing video games or browsing social media.

My consciousness is in pain right now, on account of the mistake I've just made. I wish I had not chosen to play so much chess, and rather studied my neuroscience after a quick break. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that now that I am experiencing regret, if I were presented with the same scenario I was roughly an hour ago--whether I would continue playing chess or go back to studying, fear of experiencing even more severe guilt would drive me to actually decide to study.

However, if I consider a complementary scenario, one in which I had not experienced this dull, drab feeling of regret, and I were once again faced with the same decision to make, perhaps it is also true, that even knowing what I knew today, even having experienced feelings of guilt and regret in the past, the emotional and mental state I experienced an hour ago, or mild indifference to studying, and a repulsion of the relative boringness of once again revising my notes or making flashcards, I think it is likely that I would have similarly chosen to play chess again. It is only after experiencing this sense of regret for myself that I wish to have gone back and changed the past.

Going through the experience of aftermath of such a situtation is irrelevant, if the outcome of doing so is expected, known, experienced before, and one that matches up to its expectations. If I had expected to feel the way I do now (which I am not sure is the case), perhaps then it does not really matter how I feel now, since I was expecting it all along. In such a case, I would make the same decision to play chess 100 times out of 100. If however, I was not truly expecting to feel this horrible about this decision, or if (hopefully not so) I feel less horrible than I was expecting, then I would think that this knowledge would influence my future decisions in similar dilemmas--such as deciding to do homework or watch an interesting YouTube video. In the first case, when I feel worse than expected, I would tend to stay away from such a scenario, while in the latter case, my future expectation and anticipation of the punishment (or negative consequence of a wrong decision) would increase, and I would stay on the right path more often.

So, to close off, which is in fact better--to always experience a situtation when the punishment is worse off than expected, or to have a balance in situations where the punishment is at times milder, and at times worse than that which was expected? I feel that being presented with unexpectly harsh consequence for bad behavior would be a reasonable action to take (if within one's control) if it is desired to entirely desist against the targeted action. At the same time, however, the degree of self-discipline required is significantly higher. If, on the other hand, one does not experience nearly as harsh consequence for bad behavior as expected, I think that, unfortunately, the bad behavior would be more likely to repeat itself, and that, if left uncontrolled, can evolve into a behavior that is entirely crippling, such as developing a nasty addiction to chess, and spending the entire day playing bullet, with goals that are not clearly defined.