We use the word ‘want’ to mean two different things: a comfortable or immediately gratifying ‘want’, and a longer term goal-based ‘want’.

And so you can roughly categorise any behaviour on a 2x2 matrix of whether or not you ‘want to’ and/or ‘want to’ do it:

                              | Beneficial long term | Not beneficial long term           
|=============================|======================|===========================
| Feels good now              | Sweet spot (A)       | Comfortable (B)  
| Doesn't feel good now       | Courageous (C)       | Non-existent (D) 

When something’s beneficial long term and feels good right now (A), you’ve hit the jackpot. The early stages of a project are often full of tasks like this. You want to do them right now, and you want the long-term effects. These are easy to do. Great.

If something doesn’t feel good right now but also isn’t beneficial long term (D) it doesn’t really enter our consciousness at all. It serves no purpose, so to us it does not exist. So much so that even though it’s the biggest category it’s hard to think of an example! Going outside right now and rolling in mud would be one.

B and C are where things get interesting. Society seems to teach us to optimise for C… while also making B ever more accessible and tempting. C seems to be the way to meaningfully improve our lives… except resenting ourselves or burning out or not enjoying life because we’re always acting for the future doesn’t seem ideal either…