My dad is constantly pulling out this line: “Once you’re 25 then your reason will have developed”
Well folks, in case you’ve forgotten in the however long hiatus I’ve taken I’ll let you know. I’m 19.6. So according to my daddy I haven’t developed my reason yet.
Well I’ve looked up the study that he’s always referring to and it basically is a scientific study that says that your brain isn’t finished developing until you’re 25 and the last part of your brain to develop is the part that makes decisions based on the long term outcome.
Now I’m not going to do the tests or anything, but I think that part of my brain has finished developing. If it hasn’t then I’m pretty sure I’m going to go crazy. This is my life.
“Oh hey, I’m in some serious pain. Maybe I should take some ibuprofen. But man, I haven’t eaten in a really long time. I don’t really have any food on me. I really don’t want a stomach ulcer. I guess I’ll live with the pain.”
“Oh my good lord that cigarette smells so good. Maybe I should take up smoking. But you know I really don’t have the money and I don’t want to get lung cancer. I don’t really want to put myself into an addiction like that.”
“Oh hey, it’s 1am, I should go to bed. Nah, I’ll write a blog post about making wise life decisions and drink coffee in the morning instead. But gosh darn it all that’s a dependence as well and I don’t want to have to get up early enough every single morning to make coffee just to avoid a caffeine deprivation headache. Let’s face it, I don’t have enough money to buy coffee. I guess I’ll just be miserable in class tomorrow. It’s just Nutrition. Open note tests. That class doesn’t matter anyways. Maybe I’ll just skip. Nah. He doesn’t upload the power points.”
Why do my seemingly insignificant life decisions trigger psychological crises?
Darnit, I’d better go to bed.
This has been random musings with an exhausted college student(new blog name?) I’m going to finally go to sleep. After 12 hours of wanting to sleep but procrastinating crawling in bed….
You’re right, you have made many good decisions based on an evaluation of long-term consequences. At the same time, I think that study (and others I have seen regarding impulse control) is legitimate. Just because you’re more prone to make decisions based on long-term consequences than many of your peers are doesn’t mean that you will still grow more circumspect in your decision making as time progresses–or that you aren’t currently experiencing increased discomfort with delaying short-term satisfaction due to your brain’s impulses really REALLY wanting you to make your decisions differently than you’re making them.