What you do is what you want to do

Stuart reckons `Revealed Preference' shows what you actually do is what you want to do, not what you say you want to do.

I don't really agree... and someone gave me an example. A lot of smokers say they want to quit, but don't. Because right now, they want to smoke. It is far easier to focus on the fact that they enjoy smoking right now, rather than a grand disinterested perspective where they look on a lifetime of smoking and see the negative impact it has a quality and length of life.

I think there are lots of things we genuinely want to do, but don't. Mainly, I think we suffer from inertia. Like convincing yourself to go for a run being hard, but once you are actually running you enjoy it.

Maybe what you actually do is a `revealed preference' for the short term, but I think we have to try take that step back or foward and change those short term actions to what we REALLY want to do.