Having endured the Llanelli Scarlets losing 3 rugby matches on the trot in the past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting (as I am forced to do from time to time) why I pay good money to “enjoy” such experiences.
Well firstly, I did enjoy anticipating each of these matches and the bigger the match, the more intense the pleasure of anticipation. So, I certainly got some enjoyment there.
Secondly, I know that IF we had eventually won any of these matches (and that was a real possibility in all 3 cases) then, having gritted my teeth for some lengthy parts of the match, I’d have revelled in the memory of it for some while afterwards (up until our next loss in fact).
So, paradoxically, maybe one’s enjoyment of the actual 80 minutes of the match itself is the wrong bit to focus on!
It turns out there is some truth in this – even for pleasurable experiences. A series of studies back in 1997 showed that people’s expectations of pleasurable experiences (such as holidays or day trips) and their recollections of them afterwards are both more positive than their experience of the events whilst they are actually happening!
And Kahneman, the hedonics specialist, argues that the “psychological present” only lasts somewhere between 0.5 and 3 seconds anyway – so maybe “how it feels at the time” is rarely the point! Most of our experience of life is either in anticipation or recollection – it’s very difficult (and maybe even somewhat disappointing) to live entirely in the present!
Also, according to the empirical evidence gathered by Csikszentmihalyi, the activities which people say they enjoy the most are the ones where they experience ‘flow’, i.e. they are so absorbed in the activity itself that they effectively lose consciousness of that present moment. Presumably, they can only really tell you how good it felt on reflection.
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