I think it's even simpler than that. A lot of the treadmills that society places upon us are just bullshit. It's packaged as "long term goals" to make it sound

I think it's even simpler than that. A lot of the treadmills that society places upon us are just bullshit. It's packaged as "long term goals" to make it sound more plausible (you'll either forget you were conned or get used to it in some kind of Stockholm syndrome). But in those cases there's actually no trading short for long, it's just purely bullshit. Like, the high school geometry assignment for the author. It is literally wasting her time if she didn't enjoy learning it. I guess "bullshit" might be objectively too strong a word -- given that "one man's trash is another man's treasure", whether it's trash or treasure depends on who/what person you are. But subjectively, for the wrong person, a lot of stuff is just that.