The Time Paradox, Zimbardo

of all the outcomes of psychologically related traits, the most important is longevity. Higher levels of
conscientiousness are associated with living longer. Conscientiousness is a composite of responsibility, self-
control, children, order, and responsibility.
The main aspects I’ve been using in my time perspective therapy with veterans are:
1. the appointed time and how we take it for granted. I emphasize that time can you be saved nor
borrowed. Barry must make the best with it as it progresses. Without time, other resources have no
value whatsoever.
2. The fact that there are really three time zones: the past, present, future, and how we relate to them. We
are not careful we can get stuck in any one of them at the expense of the others in her overall well-
being.
3. Most important asset is her time perspective.
4. Is very predictable and reliable that war veterans with PTSD are stuck in the past negative time
perspective and present fatalistic, at the expense of both present and future time perspectives.
5. Once veterans realize that living in the past negative present fatalistic time perspective cost them their
future, the beauty realize how expensive it is to live in the pains of the past.

Chapter 1
the first paradox of time: for attitudes toward time ever profound impact on your life in your world, yet you
seldom recognize it.
And reevaluate how we think about time, since time is more valuable than money, we are led to ask: are
we really putting the right valuations on time?
They’ll figure that out, you will have to become your own time investment planner and ask yourself three
questions.
1. What do you want out of life?
2. How can you make your time matter?
3. Was the right use of your time?

Research suggests that people are more satisfied with investment experiences, such as vacations, and in
developing meaningful social relationships than investment and material goods.
Each of us has a time perspective that is largely unconscious and subjective.
Future oriented people are most likely to be successful in the least likely to help others in need. In
contrast present oriented people are less likely to be successful but are more likely to help others.
All of psychotherapy can be seen as an attempt to work through the present to gain control over the
past and thereby the future.
Control present therefore allows you to determine what constitutes part of your past so that you can
minimize the need to rewrite retrospectively. In the course of a typical day make hundreds of decisions
such as what to wear what to eat and what to do with your free time. In any given day these decisions
appear trivial, even inconsequential. Taken as a whole, they define who you are, who you were, and
who you will become.
Chapter 2 we humans have to be careful about how much time is spent thinking about any one thing.
We protect her mental cycles, much as a miser guards his money. The colleges have actually coined the
term for this tendency, calling humans cognitive misers.
Chapter 3
we authors believe that the past matters, but it matters less than Freud and the behaviorists claimed.
Everyone is affected by the factual past but not completely determined by it. Your attitudes toward
events in the past matter more than the events themselves. You cannot change what happened in the
past, but you can change your attitudes toward what happened.
The past may give you a sense of security especially if your recollections are good ones. However new
adventures lie ahead. If you are stuck in the past, were less likely to take chances, to make new friends,
to try new foods, or to expose yourself to new music and art. You want the status quo and abhor
change.
Chapter 4
less educated people are more likely to live in the present. Future orientation is a prerequisite for
membership in the middle class. Present oriented people are less likely to be concerned with work and
more cynical about current efforts paying off in the future.
Work structures daily life into orderly predictable units as to school and college. Piñata work were out of
school wipes away that external structure and therefore demands and internally forced self self-efficacy
to navigate through each day.
My life path is controlled by forces I cannot influence - that inner voice rings loud and clear for people
with the fatalistic view of life, a kind of learned helplessness. Their behavior does not produce or even
influence the outcomes they desire. Resignation and cynicism overwhelm hopelessness and optimism.
They wait for their ship to come in, they like to change, their number to payoff, but nothing to bank their
future on. In the end, the house always wins.
Opening your mind fully to the present moment, you give up longing and desire for future possibilities
and surrender past regrets and obligations. This is why we have called it the holistic present. With this
perspective the past the present the future of the physical mental and the spiritual elements in life are
not separate but closely interconnected within you. The holistic present reflects neither the pleasure
seeking a present hedonism or the cynicism and resignation of present fatalistic.
Flow is a special state of mind in which there is total absorption for period of time in a given activity. The
main characteristics are:
clear goals
focusing, high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention
the loss of the feeling of self-consciousness
distorted sense of time
balance between ability level and challenge
a sense of personal control over the situation or activity
activity is intrinsically rewarding so there is an effortlessness of action
flow is involvement in the process of whatever you are doing. When in flow, you are not focused on the
product of the process in which you are engaged. We are concerned about the product, we worry about
how it will be judged, evaluated, accepted, or rejected. Our eagle was put on the line. Worries can then
feedback and disturb the process of crating new ideas, new visions, new products.
Common to all addictions – drugs alcohol gambling sex and food – is the immediate high they offer.
Because the aversive consequences of addictions are delayed, usually over long periods, and most
people who become addicted know intellectually that there are costs and pains to weigh against the
momentary gains, might expect that their behavior would be influenced by their knowledge. But that
abstract knowledge about future consequences never feedback to influence current decisions and
concrete actions, discount it, relegated to a vague probability, and deny it is personally relevant. Those
with present biases don’t use contingency or probabilistic thinking, don’t engage in long-term cost-
benefit analysis, and are likely to affiliate with others who deal with decisions and just the same way –
just do it.
What is wrong with such programs (DARE and abstinence programs) in their related advertising
campaigns? They focus on aversive future consequences that work for future oriented people but not
for present oriented – the target audience. They also focus on personal willpower, resolve, and
character, which fails to recognize powerful situational and social forces in the present behavioral
contacts that influence Hedonists and Fatalists more than they do others.
Chapter 5
the future like the past is never experienced directly. It is a psychologically constructed mental state.
Fashioned out of our hopes and fears our expectations and our aspirations, the future is essential
scaffolding for success in school business the arts and athletics. Talent intelligence and ability are
necessary for success they are not sufficient. Discipline, perseverance, and a sense of personal efficacy
are also required. Tomorrow’s anticipated gains and losses fuel today’s decisions and actions.
Gratification delayed for greater reward is always a better bet for futures, will trade a bird in the hand
for flock in the future. The futures live in their minds, envisioning other cells, scenarios, rewards, and
successes. Belief in your own strength and high-level performance may make you work harder and
longer in anticipation of success. When you want to achieve something in you believe you can, you work
harder.
Future oriented people use what is known as backtracking algorithms and future checking, so
procedures and problem solving that attempt to foresee and evaluate alternate strategies for attaining
goals. No one taught them these fancy leaning techniques. They develop them by next week dealing
with the world through trial and error.
Being hopeful is part of being future oriented. But futures hope is tempered with realism, not inflated
with fantasy. They know they have to work to make hopes come true in the discipline and sometimes
righteous suffering are necessary for getting from here to where they want to be.
People who rehearsed the steps that they needed to take in order to get good grades and deal with
stressful experiences did better than people who imagine themselves getting good grades and
alleviating stress. You folks on the process of achieving your goal rather than imagining the end product
of your efforts, your chance of success will increase.
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
the Stanford sociobiologist Robert Sapolsky claims in our human ability to prepare for and worry about
the future is both a blessing and a curse. The blessings are all the preventative and preparatory
behaviors we have discussed. The curses that a propensity to worry about the future causes constant
stress.
Turns out that we humans evolved to avoid threats, just as Zebra does, and we should be kicking back
for most of the day, running my call me when danger approaches. Instead of periodic physical threats,
like predators, we humans are faced with continual psychological threats, like those involved in getting a
job, getting in the right college, making the house payment, dealing with problem kids, etc. Although the
types of threats we are faced have changed, or biological responses to them remain the same. Unlike
brief physical threats, psychological threats hit us in the deepest recess of our brains. Or how much we
like them to go away so we can concentrate on eating grass, they persist in tormenting us.
Here is a good news and the bad news. Our stress response is not shoot through the roof when we think
about losing our jobs, as the zebras does when a lion approaches, but neither does her stress response
drop into the basement, as the zebras does when the lion departs. The zebras have an acute stress
response every now and then. We in contrast have a chronic stress response that is seldom as extreme
as the zebras but never goes away.
Chapter 8
a limited future encourages us to make choices that enhance her positive emotional state rather than
for instance to pursue an education or other future oriented activity. Because old people anticipate a
limited future, they are more apt to do what feels good – from speaking their minds to traveling to make
dramatic changes in their lives. The same may be said for anyone who is in a situation that portends an
uncertain future or clearly defined and, as having a terminal disease or losing a job.
Learning to control impulses and make better choices is inextricably connected with being aware of
one’s internal states and with managing feelings rather than acting them out. Emotions rather than
reason tend to dread the behavior people who have poor impulse control. Impulsivity is the hallmark of
present hedonistic adolescence but many carry it over into adulthood, which makes them susceptible to
various addictions that’s all good now but are not worth the negative future consequent.
Dr. Phil McGraw - when you choose the behavior, you choose the consequence.
Chapter 9
because happiness is not urgent, and an inner happiness can take time to acquire, happiness drops
down on our list of priorities.
One thing that generally makes us happier success. With success as with happiness, however we know it
when we see it, but we are hard-pressed to describe what it is. John wooden – success is peace of mind
which is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you
are capable of becoming. Hard work and striving for success in the future are hallmarks of the wooden
way.
According to the Dalai Lama, even the least enlightened among us can immediately apply to simple
techniques to living. The first is to identify the things in your life that make you happy, into more men.
This technique seems simple enough, but it is difficult to do. The second technique is the reverse side of
the first - identify the things in your life that make you unhappy, and do fewer of them.
Chapter 10
one of Bill Clinton’s key ingredients and his charisma – the ability to narrow his focus and gaze directly
into the eyes of a person with whom he is engaged, shutting out all else around him. He makes his
listener feel special, chosen – for a full 45 seconds. Everyone feel singled out, individuated, special for a
fraction of a minute.
Chapter 11
a sense of a positive past gives you roots. A positive past ground, provides a sense of the continuity of
life, it allows you to be connected to family tradition and your cultural inheritance. The future
perspective you can envision a future filled with hope optimism and power. The Quincy to escape the
status quo, the fear inherent in strength in the safe, known ways, well-traveled roads to the destination.
A hedonistic present gives you the energy and joy about being alive. That energy drives you to ask for
people places and sell. Present hedonism is life-affirming, in moderation, for opens a census to
appreciation of nature and the pleasure of human sexuality.
Here are some tips for balancing her time perspective. First you need to do less, not more. It also means
that when you make your to-do list, you discard all those things on the bottom of the list and do not add
anything new until you are read of one or more of the old. You make conscious choices about what you
must do is decide what is really important so it cannot be put on the back burner. Your aim is to
slimmed down your commitments and obligations. Eliminate as much as you can until you are in a
comfort zone. Start to do more by doing less. Throw out the trash. Clean your closets worn out working
garments. Stop going to events you don’t like. Reducing the range of options makes it possible to narrow
one’s focus and concentrate better.
We choose to rush and be busy. We can choose to slow down and cut back. This is in our power. By
making such a choice is not easy.
Chapter 12
where can you find purpose? What success and happiness, and purpose exists in the present, and we
constantly strive toward the future to maintain it. The most important things that we strive toward
something. Societal expectations matter little – personal expectations matter tremendously.