repeadtedly doing things you know will have a bad outcome

Post Reply New Topic

I hope my comment did not offend you - I wrote "Yes, but I suppose that you don't do the same thing over and over while expecting a different outcome, you simply lack the planning skills and the awareness of outcome to manage the process" and I really do mean the opposite of stupid when I say that.

There is not an expectation of a different outcome, in fact there is no expectation at all in my case - I am kind of surprised, and very annoyed when I realise that I have ruined another item of clothing. There is a cognitive deficit of some kind going on in failing to plan or anticipate outcomes.

I think that if I had a name for this cognitive deficit, then I could find methods for coping with it.

I never heard that this was an autistic trait but it is one I suppose I am guilty of. In my case I think its just optimism/stubbornness. I might make the same mistake repeatedly because I haven't properly identified the origin of previous failures, instead blaming them on bad luck. For example yesterday I was playing a racing game that I hadn't touched for years, and lap after lap I went into the same corner at much too high a speed so that I drove off the track. Eventually I managed to get past this by taking it in first gear, but it took me a good half hour to work my way up to this solution.

I've also had this problem. I often ask myself why I do things that I know will have a bad outcome. I think I concluded there's almost a certain thrill to it, or maybe some sort of desire to see the bad outcome play out even though I don't think I want the bad outcome, per se. Almost sometimes like its easier to charge right into the oncoming train even though you see it coming, because somehow that's easier than changing course or running the other way.

I've also heard that as the definition of insanity. But I think it is referring more to someone making the same decision over and over. Not getting into a routinized pattern. When thinking about it, making a different choice is not the same thing.

(I always use the example of Trickle-Down economics. Didn't work for Reagan, why would it work now? Or the War on Drugs--another good example of the maxim.)

I don't learn from experience so such things happen to me a lot. I know full well they will have a bad outcome but when I feel like doing them, I just follow this impulse. For example once I happened to flunk an exam. I was fully aware that I had to prepare for the retake or otherwise, if I didn't pass it, I would have to do it for the third time but this time I would have to pay a lot of money for taking it but I did NOTHING with this. I passively let the time fly until the date of my retake of the exam came. I was lucky because I managed to cheat (here cheating is NOTHING UNUSUAL) and I succeeeded. But if I were in a similar situation for the next time, I would most likely do the same thing - even knowing that I would regret my laziness before the very retake.

I frequently "forget" to wait for hot food to cool before I try to eat it. I will know from touching it that the food will burn my mouth, yet I will still try to eat it, or I will set it down and wait for it to cool and try to try eat it when it is obviously still hot. I constantly have blisters on the top of my mouth because of this. Pain is an inadequate incentive for me to change my ways.