Is it possible to really act contrary to our emotions? Perhaps it isn’t. Maybe our emotions about things are hierarchically arranged in our psyches and we only ever really act based on what we unconsciously deem most important. We are constantly sorting through our affective memory and our affective projections into the future. We are constantly prospecting our past and future for emotional gold. People want to feel good, there’s no doubt about that. Then why do we sometimes do those things that will obviously make us feel bad in the long run? It’s because we hope that that impulsive action will make us feel good enough in the present moment to make us forget about the emotional pain that we feel thinking about the past and future. So we have gotten very good at estimating the short and long term emotional effects of our actions and determining the relative value of choices. Would it be worth it to experience pain in the short term to be able to feel pleasure in the future? Would i