The credit mindset

I am sure many of us have enjoyed binge eating at some point in life, enjoying that incredible piece of steak, that delicious deep fried snack, or savoring those yummy desserts high in calories. Early in life we can indulge in over-eating, but as we grow older we develop a sense of guilt. Some do stay strong & stop indulging altogether. While few others, like me, promise to ourselves that we will work out tomorrow to balance this out. I call this the fitness credit. We haven’t yet earned the fitness “brownie” points, but we happily borrow a credit, so to speak, of something we will do in future. All well if it works out as planned. But just like the financial credit, missing the re-payment might prove costly. More and more misses, your fitness score in terms of the cholesterol & sugar levels will drastically deteriorate (like the credit score in financial terms). And much like the financial situation, its always good to work out first before enjoying the fruits of labor.

There is however one scenario where I think this credit system works to our great favor. During my engineering days, I used to be a great fan of Manchester United football club. Watching the European Champions League and English Premier league matches were the best moments of my life back then. When giving my semester exams, one thing that kept me going was this high anticipation about an exciting football match coming up later tonight to look forward to. I would borrow some “pleasure” credit from this future event to my present and it would relax me so much. I heard this amazing line somewhere “Bad thing about good things is that it ends. Also, the good thing about bad things is that it ends, too”. Thankfully I have maintained this mindset even to this day. While facing any stress at work, I feel free to borrow some future credits of happiness (definition of happiness has kept changing over the years), so as to normalize the situation. I like to keep telling myself “This is just temporary, it will pass. Great pleasure awaits you at later time. Hang in there.”.

Probably this is true for any person working hard towards a goal. Borrowing the credit of reaching the goal should make it bit easier to reach that goal. Of course, just day-dreaming about reaching the goal wont help, its about borrowing the credit to push yourself when life gets tough. The credit mindset, after-all is not bad if used in the right place and at the right time.