vacations

Don't work yourself too hard

Wired magazine has a short summary of regret -- people regret working extra hours instead of doing something fun when they look back on it after a few years.

If you rabidly focus on work, in the long run, you'll be unhappy. Ran Kivetz, a professor of business at Columbia University, recently conducted a series of experiments that identified a paradox in our behavior: Doing the "right" thing—putting our responsibilities ahead of momentary pleasures—often leaves us unhappy down the road. When we skip a vacation to work overtime or pass up that awesome vintage Porsche for a used minivan—sure, we pat ourselves on the back for a week or two. But as the years go by, we invariably regret our monkishness and wish we'd enjoyed ourselves more.

The word for this is hyperopia: an excess of farsightedness. In a 2006 study, Kivetz asked respondents to think about a moment from the previous week when they had to choose between work and pleasure; then he asked them to rate how much they regretted their decision. The amount that people regretted either working or relaxing was pretty much equal. But then he asked a second group to think about a similar moment from five years earlier. This time, people's regret over working was more than double the regret over playing.