Imagining a better future self can also have harmful effects. Reality often doesn't live up to expectations and projecting what it would feel like to have or be

Imagining a better future self can also have harmful effects. Reality often doesn't live up to expectations and projecting what it would feel like to have or be something gives us some of the enjoyment of being that before we actually achieve. Furthermore, when our ideal of what something should doesn't live up to what it is, the gap creates unhappiness.