For the most part, I think logical sense has an element of short term limitations, even though it's mostly with emotional impulses that we execute short term decisions.
Via logical sense, foresight might tell me that this action will lead to consequences I'll regret later, but something compels me to proceed anyway.
In many ways, operating from a short term viewpoint with regards to decision-making is almost unavoidable.
Part of the reason is a lack of concrete incentives for long-term thinking.
When we're anticipating for an upcoming experience, the last thing on our mind is usually the long-term repercussions.
At the forefront, it's always immediate gratification or pressing concerns.
In "Profit Without Prosperity," William Lazonick explored how corporate focus on shareholder value and stock-price maximization drives short-term decision making that ultimately undermines sustainable growth and broader economic prosperity.
Also, against the backdrop of quarterly earnings reports and performance bonuses tied to immediate results, even well-intentioned leaders find themselves trapped in systems that reward short-term gains over long-term sustainability.
The Collective Nature of Short-Term Thinking
I'll argue that short-term thinking transcends individual choice, in the sense that even when we recognize the pattern, we tend to find ourselves caught in systems and structures that reinforce immediate results over sustainable outcomes.
A rather stark modern manifestation of this is how social media rewards instant engagement rather than thoughtful discourse.
Perhaps this itself is also a manifestation of our evolutionarily developed dopamine reward system being hijacked by technology platforms optimized for attention capture.
This system shaped our collective behavior in ways that individual willpower alone cannot overcome to a large degree.
I often try to find the root problem or rather the source of this short term orientation and keep coming back to misaligned incentive structures across our institutions.
The Cognitive Dimension
A recurring challenge is that our cognitive architecture itself seems predisposed toward immediate rewards.
It has been documented that we discount future benefits in favor of present ones, which is a phenomenon called hyperbolic discounting.
Basically, our brains evolved in environments where immediate threats and opportunities demanded attention, not distant possibilities.
Unlike my previous understanding that it's merely a weakness of individual willpower.
The reality is that it's a feature of human cognition that served our ancestors well in resource-scarce environments and we're more or less caught in an evolutionary mismatch between our ancient brains and modern contexts.
Breaking the Cycle
If short-term thinking is built into both how society in general operates and our cognitive processes, how might we create counterbalancing forces?
I'm not so sure with regards to society in general. I think given enough momentum individual changes can impact the broader social patterns and it's also closer to the source of the problem. Since society in general is made up of individuals, obviously.
I think like Odysseus binding himself to the mast to resist the Sirens' call, we can create systems that help us commit to long-term goals despite short-term temptations.
In practice, an example could be automatic savings programs that prevent us from spending money we've committed to future purposes.
Alternatively, groups that maintain intergenerational perspectives demonstrate how shared values can sustain long-term thinking.
This is hard to come by from a mainstream cultural standpoint but there are pockets of indigenous wisdom and certain religious or philosophical traditions here and there.
From a mental perspective, regularly engaging with long-term scenarios and possibilities can strengthen our capacity to consider distant consequences.
In Summary
I think what Lazonick recognized in the corporate world applies broadly across human experience. Our tendency toward short-term thinking is an interplay between cognitive limitations, institutional pressures, and cultural norms.
Addressing it requires both individual resolve and collective redesign of the systems that subconsciously shape our choices.
Long-term thinking isn't just about delayed gratification. That's merely an aspect of it. Another aspect includes expanding our circle of concern across time with the aim of recognizing our responsibility to future generations just as we acknowledge our debt to past ones.
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