{"id":1270,"date":"2018-06-05T11:44:16","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T11:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2025-09-22T11:44:53","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T11:44:53","slug":"the-ideal-road-not-taken-just-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/2018\/06\/05\/the-ideal-road-not-taken-just-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ideal Road Not Taken \u2013 Just Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.cornell.edu\/stories\/2018\/05\/woulda-coulda-shoulda-haunting-regret-failing-our-ideal-selves\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cornell Chronicle<\/a>: People are haunted more by regrets about failing to fulfil their hopes, goals, and aspiration than by regrets about failing to fulfil their duties, obligations and responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p>The finding was published by psychologist and Cornell alumnus Tom Gilovich in his co-authored research with Shai Davidai titled \u2018The Ideal Road Not Taken\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The research builds on the idea of three elements which make up a person\u2019s sense of self: the <em>actual<\/em>, <em>ideal<\/em> and the \u2018<em>ought\u2019\u00a0<\/em>selves. The actual self is made up of the attributes a person believes they possess. The ideal self is the attributes they would ideally like to possess, such as hopes, goals, aspirations or wishes. The \u2018<em>ought self\u2019<\/em> is the person they feel they should have been based on duties, obligations and responsibilities, an example of \u2018<em>ought self\u2019 <\/em>is \u201cto be a healthier person, I ought and should go to the gym more often.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Research also has shown in short-term, people regret their actions more than inactions. However, in the long term, people tend to regret the things they hadn\u2019t done rather than things they had.\u00a0 This proves that people\u2019s most enduring regrets in life come from discrepancies between their actual and ideal selves.<\/p>\n<p>People tend to take more active steps to rectify regrets related to their \u2018<em>ought selves\u2019 as<\/em> they usually involve more concrete expectations and tangible results \u2013 which are easier to fulfil. In comparison to ideal-related regrets which tend to be general with no clear yardsticks, such as how to be a good parent, be a good boss and more.<\/p>\n<p>As clich\u00e9 as it may sound, the practical conclusion from this research emphasizes individuals to \u2018just do it\u2019, and don\u2019t wait for inspiration, as inspiration arises from engaging in activity. Try to achieve your ideal goals and don\u2019t worry how it will look to others or what they would say as people are more charitable than we think and also don\u2019t notice us nearly as much as we think.<\/p>\n<p>Cited from: <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cornell.edu\/stories\/2018\/05\/woulda-coulda-shoulda-haunting-regret-failing-our-ideal-selves\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Susan Kelly. Woulda,coulda,shoulda: the haunting regret of failing our ideal selves. New York: Cornell Chronicle, 24 May 2018<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cornell Chronicle: People are haunted more by regrets about failing to fulfil their hopes, goals, and aspiration than by regrets about failing to fulfil their duties, obligations and responsibilities. The finding was published by psychologist and Cornell alumnus Tom Gilovich in his co-authored research with Shai Davidai titled \u2018The Ideal Road Not Taken\u2019. The research [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-june-2018-issue"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genashtim.sg\/ecornell\/newsletter-v2\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}