Self-Reinforcing Uphill

Greetings, fellow sentient beings! Perhaps I should also add...fellow progressors ;)

Since we're here, we're most likely bound by our common will to make progress and also help progress happen, aren't we?

There's this collection of Strugatski Bros novels called The Progressors And The Strangers, sci-fi, you know, the Progressors being agents of change introduced to some less developed than theirs civilization. Often on another planet.

But hey, in real life, we have this one planet to take care of and our whole lives to develop. It's quite the task, still. Lots of progress to be made.

The best thing is, it's challenging

It's a great game. If you are able to look at it that way. Although, games are usually quite shorter and quite fast-paced so that you can feel progress easily.

The good thing about the crypto space is, it is kind of accelerated in relation to other aspects of modern life, even. It bridges games and reality in that regard.

But my goal here is to remind you that you can benefit from developing a game mindset about your enterprises in general.

Set goals yourself. You are your own quest giver. Or you can accept quests by others while not losing focus on your own progress. Each step should bring you more experience and make you better in something. Or teach you a lesson. Bring some income to be allocated...and allocating stuff is a game in and on itself.

And here we come to you rewarding yourself for each job well done

There are two general styles in which we all do this until we learn to stick to mostly one of those:

Disruptive and Constructive. Freud spoke of our Thanatos and Eros drives towards destruction or creation. That I shall not go into but it applies to the division I currently use speaking of rewards.

Disruptive does not feel disruptive. It feels great, it is the instant gratification. The short-term pleasure. The relapse from pursuing your goals...

The cake after the good jogging session. The coffee in my system. The milk and sugar in my coffee. The victory cigar that brings you another step closer to ultimate loss. The second beer, the third beer, the fourth beer. The Lambo. The second, the third, the...ninth, the tenth issue of that TV series for the evening.

In general, pleasure, that sets you a bit back on the track. Slows you down, drains resources without helping produce more.

But!

If it helps you fight burnout, feel better, have a rest...

Rest is important. Rest can be a reward. If it's quality rest that actually helps your mind or body recover. Hobbies are, in my own opinion, as important as your work even in the case that you work on your life goal.

Controlling the amount of addictive hobbies is another beer entirely.

Constructive might not feel obviously constructive at first. It's the kind of reward that makes you better equipped to deal with your future tasks. That rest can too kind of qualify here, I think. Anything to make you better.

Anything to reinforce your abilities to pursue and achieve your goals.

For instance, you can choose how to reward yourself after receiving your good post payout. You can withdraw and buy an ice cream. You can Power Up and increase your curation rewards potential. You can withdraw and buy some useful asset, equipment, materials that you need. You can invest and lose or win, you can just hold and wait. It's your choice.

If you invest into Real Estate, you need a lot of time until you see your results. If it's crypto virtual estate, the results come daily. But it's still...virtual.

Let me give you a more clear but at the same time more out of our world example, one from the Fantasy Role Playing Games environment:

You have completed your quest and you have your bag of coins as a reward. You can either keep them until they are the amount that you need for something else or just hoard them if they are their own goal; you can invest them into new weapons or armor which would increase your chance of defeating tougher foes and gain better rewards; you can spend them in the pub or brothel.

The funny thing is, in games we tend to focus on the end goal and ignore our character's pleasure. Our character is a tool for us. Of course, there are those who would rather role play into some consumer style but...that's rarely the case. Not so in real life where we are the tools and we can feel our needs and whims more intensely. We're mostly hard-driven by them.

Make it according to your own strategy in life. Or your own whims. It's one of the tree as I see it: consume/slowly build/risk for quick gain.

I know of people who would gamble away their wages almost as soon as they get them. Most of them smart enough to set aside some money for their basic needs. Until they are not that smart anymore? Often, yes.

Does slow and steady win the race?

It's not important that it be slow, in my opinion. It's important that it's steady. That we reinforce ourselves in order to perform better. To our own delight, at least.

Self-Reinforcing is usually uphill. Unless you can do it while rushing downhill, too.

Cheers!

Manol

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