Learnt Something new today.

'The fear of losing something motivates people more than the prospect of gaining something of equal value.'

Yes.

If you've ever played a game like Diablo or Path of Exile, this becomes extremely clear.

All items have random stats, and sometimes it's quite difficult to decide whether the combination of minor losses and gains in stats is worth the item swap, especially if the stats or effects don't contribute directly to combat strength.

Your brain gets clouded with a bunch of red and green lines which can't be objectively played out against each other.

That is, until you pretend you were already wearing those freshly dropped boots, and pretend you're judging the boots you've had for days as if they're freshly dropped.

You'll notice a pretty strong irrational bias for retaining what you're wearing.

@bittersweet This also ties into the bias that something randomly found is more valuable than specifically choosing it.

How many times have you rewatched a movie on Netflix... probably not that common. Or only watch half of the movie...NEVER! You have so many options your brain wants to pick the best possible option from the 87 billion available.

Now start flipping through traditional cable/satellite TV channels. Less options, no control over what is available. I know soooo many people that will rewatch a movie multiple times (or part of the movie) because they just 'happened' to find it.

@bittersweet This is actually a great personal motivation strategy:

Convince yourself that you’ve already achieved your goal. You’ve put in all of the effort, made the sacrifices, achieved the victories, and are finally living in that forest house away from all the problems of the world.

Now look around you. You’re not there, and you won’t ever be there unless you start fighting for it, right now, and continue to fight or you will lose that chance forever.

It’s a hypothetical loss, but it works quite well.