psychologists have found that people continually mispredict what will…
Keyword future psychologists have found that people continually mispredict what will happen in the future as related to both pleasant and unpleasant events. We overestimate the effects of both kinds of future events in our lives. This seems to be a psychological predicament that we all have. It is called anticipated utility by Danny kahneman and effective forecasting by Dan Gilbert. We grossly overestimate the length of the effect of misfortune on our lives. You think that the loss of your fortune or current position will be devastating but you are probably wrong. You will adapt anything that as you probably did in the past after past misfortunes. This kind of misprediction may have a purpose to motivate us to perform important acts and to prevent us from taking certain unnecessary risks. This is part of a more general problem where we humans are supposed to fool ourselves a little bit here and there.
— from The Flight Plan (Purpose/Wisdom/Risk)