I just tried it and feel worse than ever, because I started to fear these things actually happening, instead of what I usually do, and suppressing these fears. I imagined my wife and daughter dead, me suffering from a debilitating illness etc. and got scared because I always fear these things but usually manage to suppress the fears or numb them with alcohol. Instead of appreciating what I have today, it made me less able to suppress the fears of losing them tomorrow. I am never able to enjoy anything unless I can convince myself it lasts forever, and a combination of compartmentalization, willful cognitive dissonance, wishful thinking, positive visualization and some numbing alcohol helps usually half-convince myself, so I am usually halfway happy. Good enough. I don’t know if other people work that way… if I am eating a brownie, I have to convince myself it is an infinitely large brownie and I will never have to stop eating it, or else I could not bring myself to bite into it, because I would feel too guilty for every bite making it smaller and thus robbing my future self from enjoying that brownie.
I just tried it and feel worse than ever, because I started to fear these things actually happening, instead of what I usually do, and suppressing these fears. I imagined my wife and daughter dead, me suffering from a debilitating illness etc. and got scared because I always fear these things but usually manage to suppress the fears or numb them with alcohol. Instead of appreciating what I have today, it made me less able to suppress the fears of losing them tomorrow. I am never able to enjoy anything unless I can convince myself it lasts forever, and a combination of compartmentalization, willful cognitive dissonance, wishful thinking, positive visualization and some numbing alcohol helps usually half-convince myself, so I am usually halfway happy. Good enough. I don’t know if other people work that way… if I am eating a brownie, I have to convince myself it is an infinitely large brownie and I will never have to stop eating it, or else I could not bring myself to bite into it, because I would feel too guilty for every bite making it smaller and thus robbing my future self from enjoying that brownie.
My experience is almost entirely the opposite of yours. Counter-examples are valuable. Thanks.