Alcohol, drugs, smoking, vaping, porn, junk food, video games, TV. The list goes on and on.
Everyone’s situation is different, I (26m) live at home, don’t drive and basically unemployed except for some work here and there.
As humans, we know what we **should** be doing, but only a small amount of people actually **do** the right habits consistently.
**Eli5: Why do we do bad habits despite knowing we shouldn’t?**
In: Other
Because most bad habits have positive returns in the very short term. I.e. They make us feel good right now.
Humans generally have a hard time balancing long term over short term gain.
As Aristotle once posited, ultimately, all that we want is to be happy, and everything we do is an effort to obtain that happiness. Even when we do things we don’t really like (such as working at a miserable job), we do it because we believe the alternative (such as having no job and being broke) would make us less happy. Some people also make choices to obtain long-term happiness rather than immediate gratification (sure, you’d like to buy a new car, but you decide to put your extra money into a retirement account, so you can also be happy when you eventually retire).
“Bad habits,” such as the things you mentioned, are also an effort to obtain happiness. However, they are often a choice for immediate gratification rather than long-term happiness. The average smoker knows that smoking tobacco is bad for him, but the short term mini-high of smoking a cigarette can be far more pleasurable, in the short term, than suffering the uncomfortable effects of nicotine withdrawal.
In sum, we choose bad habits because we believe that they provide us with short-term happiness, even if we also know that they may negatively affect our long-term happiness.
The benefit it gives us (better feeling, relief, endorphins) makes it worth it to us.
Especially when the consequences aren’t tangible. For example, if we can afford to smoke, then the cost of money is worth it for the benefit to us. But lung disease is probably a cost we wouldn’t pay, but it doesn’t exist until it’s too late, so we sometimes justify that it won’t happen to us .
Sucks that real life’s problems cause people to do this, and I can relate.
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