longterm vs. shortterm

Geoffrey Beane and I were having a conversation yesterday about decisions and actions based on longterm and shortterm. This conversation was spurred by Sex and The City (I had just finished watching the last 4 episodes of the 6th season, for the 1st time). He iterated that two of the characters made a lot of decisions based on shortterm gratification rather than longterm goals. Therefore, he didn't like or respect the characters very much.

In some respects, I see his point. But I also think that it depends on how you are looking at it. In some circumstances, it could be true, or not, that shortterm, and maybe even "short-sighted," motives and behaviors are completely justified.

I cited to him that a dating relationship is most obviously a shortterm decision. Granted, for many people there are long-term goals in mind. But rarely do I go on a first date with the idea that I'm getting married to my date. I'm thinking more along the lines of surviving the evening, not embarassing myself, getting to know someone and trying to have a good time. I've even been on dates where I KNEW beforehand it was going nowhere. I was espousing the idea of being nice to the guy, and it can't hurt to have a good time (as long as he doesn't scare me.:)) Geoffrey ceded that dating was a shortterm goal that was not bad.

So, does everything you do have to have an over-arching longterm purpose? For example, dancing. Does dancing have a longterm purpose? It seems pretty instant gratification-oriented to me. What about my shoe collection? Or that trip to Vegas last week? :) One thing's for sure. Neither has helped my bank account(***please note that no money lost in Vegas was due to losses in gambling.**** please also note that I did not say I DIDN'T gamble. I just said I didn't lose.). But are they bad?

I think my life would be much less fulfilling without these things. But then there are obvious ones to identify -- one nightstands -- I see how that is a very bad shortterm gratification. Sad, because they do sound so fun and easy in theory. There must, however, be a place for doing something for the "fun" of it, without being bad.

I think it has a lot to do with the "eat, drink and be merry" theory. There is this place called "living it up" where things go from white to grey to bad. Lines dividing these areas are very evasive, so much so that I'm not sure they have ever been identified. This is probably why old party-pooper fuddy-duddies always warn to stay as far away from the edge of the line as possible: because it is so hard to identify whether or not the line's been crossed, and they believe one's better off to avoid the bad at any and all costs.

And then you have idiots like myself, who like to get as cloooooooooose as possible to those lines, in the spirit of wanting to have as much FUN as possible and "suck the marrow at of life"... without being bad. Not a wrong endeavor, right? But it's so hard to discern when it is exactly that things start to go bad. I'm not sure this blog ended up where it started. But thoughts don't always do that. And I was just thinking....