Self-Control Is Just Empathy With Your Future Self - The Atlantic - Ed Yong - Dec 6, 2016

This quote was added by betty_d
Empathy depends on your ability to overcome your own perspective, appreciate someone else's, and step into their shoes. Self-control is essentially the same skill, except that those other shoes belong to your future self. A removed and hypothetical entity who might as well be a different person. So think of self-control as a kind of temporal selflessness. It's Present You taking a hit to help out Future You.

Train on this quote


Rate this quote:
3.5 out of 5 based on 65 ratings.

Edit Text

Edit author and title

(Changes are manually reviewed)

or just leave a comment:


user958697 4 years, 6 months ago
The Present You helping out the Future You... How interesting! I have the opposite thought. I am miserable, in custody, and without hope, and has absolutely no one to trust. I am mind-controlled, enslaved by the vampire, and cannot break free. I look out of the window and wish the Future Me would arrive in a time machine and deliver me out of this prison. But then I thought, the Future Me cannot contact the Present Me; otherwise, the timeline would be disrupted. Therefore, even if the Future Me did visit, the Present Me would never know. With that thought, the Present Me recollects himself and goes back to accepting and enduring the sufferings for eternity. The Multiverse continues to exist purely relying on the tinge of contentment out of that belief, in the very core of the Present Me.
venerated 4 years, 6 months ago
actual valuable perspective. good quote

Test your skills, take the Typing Test.

Score (WPM) distribution for this quote. More.

Best scores for this typing test

Name WPM Accuracy
highhonedjazzyaudio 145.00 97.6%
jiggalee 139.85 97.2%
minwoo89061437 128.22 98.1%
hackertyper492 127.93 95.2%
user491757 126.26 97.2%
venerated 124.45 96.7%
violet12333 121.81 95.4%
user64764 120.73 94.3%
strikeemblem 120.69 97.9%
peggyrwa 120.30 97.2%

Recently for

Name WPM Accuracy
minwoo89061437 128.22 98.1%
bp.kuma 66.22 91.9%
user107950 38.71 95.6%
petrolfume 86.05 91.3%
cewial 91.92 93.4%
catboardbeta 90.74 95.6%
user112497 6.69 96.7%
user115423 40.62 93.2%