"Do the Right Thing, Dear"

A hundred years from now, will people do fewer irrational things? I’m referring to those things we do even though we know better—things like eat ice cream when we’re trying to diet, have another smoke when we’re trying to quit, kiss somebody we’re not supposed to be kissing.

My impression from the world of evolutionary psychology is that our brains have layer upon layer of often conflicting behavioural instructions stemming from different eras of our genetic history. At the top of the "heap", if you will, is our most recent evolutionary advance--the “thinking brain” or forebrain. At the very bottom are the vestiges of hundreds of millions years of genetic history, back to when we were, like, fish. We’d like to think the thinking brain is driving the bus of our life, but often it’s our old programming that's in charge. Sometimes we're just passengers.

Some of us are better than others at resisting impulses. So that gives some hope. They have going for them things like higher self esteem, healthier disciplines, greater self-awareness of what’s going on down there (deeper in their brain, if you will)—things that help the brain somehow leap, or maybe crawl, past temptation.

Is a hundred years enough time?