Avoiding the short term altogether

Analysing goals

In a lot of goals that are really worth their value in achieving, short term pain is gone through in order to experience the long term pleasure of rewards/benefits. Case in point: assignments as an example. It occurs often also, that goals that are not worth much value from achieving often provide short term pleasure, but not much long term benefits. Case in point: watching a repeat of your favorite episode of human planet [or insert TV program here]. There are anomalies but generally this is the case, and there is a balance to enjoying each day that life brings you.

The source of my worries, troubles and my life in general, comes from my capacity to go through short term pain. This is what I once prized as my ability to see beyond the present 'short term pain' into the future to see 'long term pleasure', and to hence achieve goals.

However, it has prevailed that I have been restricting myself from short term pleasures as a way to punish myself for not going through short term pain. Avoiding the short term altogether. This is in the hope of negatively enforcing myself for avoiding short term pain in the hope of seeing the long term pleasure, motivating me to pursue it. This does not work. For doing this has created what one could call a vicious circle of misery from not experiencing any pleasure whatsoever, or being in the present and enjoying the moment.

Restricting short term pleasure does not help in the seeking out of long term pleasures, but rather the opposite. Being miserable helps to only see other misery in the past, present or future, pushing any vision of hope or happiness out of the immediate consciousness. When pleasure (as well as pain) is not experienced in the short term, one could argue that this restricts a person from envisioning a long term altogether: the pains or pleasures of different choices to be made.

Hence, this technique of restricting short term pleasure as a means of self punishment does not help one to become motivated into pursuing their dreams. What could help is rather analysing one's choices: being clear of what the short term pleasure of a decision is, and what is the short term pain that is being avoided. Then, what is the long term pain that will come from avoiding the short term pain? And what would be the long term pleasure from going through with the short term pain, having sacrificed the short term pleasure?