We often tend to think of decision making through a “short term vs. long term” framework, but I think it’s really “immediate term vs. short term.”

Life is too unpredictable to make many accurate long term decisions, and those types of decisions are ones that are made over long discussions and decision trees and debate. These might truly be long term decisions, but when you’ve got a cigarette in your hand, the decisions to light up is much more immediate, even if you’re framing it from a long-term health lens.

Let’s be honest that most of the decisions we make are really between scratching an immediate itch or giving in to a habit and making a conscious decision.