Each of us has an “experiencing self” and a “remembering self” — and they are very different.
Medical and other studies have demonstrated that people will rate as more positive a longer experience of pain that ends well than a shorter period of pain that doesn’t. These studies provide scientific validity for the fact that most women who have given birth to a child are willing to consider going through it again.
It turns out that how people remember experience – how they evaluate their life – is more important than experience itself. It What people want is not the well-being of their experiencing self. What they want are good memories – a good story about their life.
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