Your reply makes sense and triggered some further thoughts: We need to push ourselves to do things with no immediate reward (because our instincts are a bit sh

Your reply makes sense and triggered some further thoughts: We need to push ourselves to do things with no immediate reward (because our instincts are a bit short-sighted). I however still fear that (2) might cause some detachment from your "inner self". If you force your mood, your feelings, your body to step back to make the high-level goal possible you might burn out quicker. The high-level goal being something you imposed on yourself, like having a skyrocketing career. That in itself might be triggered by swelling fears you don't want to deal with (to stay productive and functioning, haha, here we are in a spiral). On the other hand effective working might reduce stress too and your career can avoid money trouble. It's hard to weigh in all factors. But as said, I think it's healthy to be a bit skeptic towards such self-optimization. edit: Another thought: when I was young I used to play computer all day long for the first 2 weeks of the big summer holidays. After that, quite suddenly, it urged me to do something more fulfilling that might be considered more healthy. I think there is power for self-regulation, even on a subconscious level, but it might need some more freedom to keep that. In this case it needed a whole 2 weeks to waste on games before it made me feel empty and longing for something else. 2 weeks of time sadly is a luxury I just had once a year as a teenager and is hard to come by as an adult.