I cleaned out the filters in the mini-splits. I really don’t think it’ll make a noticeable difference in their operation, despite what HVAC companies say.
Still, it was satisfying, at least a little bit, because regardless of their effect, the filters actually are cleaner.
I’ve been thinking about reward and effort. Things like gathering data and emailing and calling government officials aren’t rewarding at all. You have to do them, if you want any chance of change that is under the control of the government. But if that chance doesn’t pan out, which is most of the time, you get nothing.
The same goes for calling companies to get them to give you something they should have given you, but didn’t. In those cases, you do get rewarded more often than you do when trying to make a policy change happen, but it doesn’t feel like a reward because it’s something you should have had anyway.
You can’t go through life not doing things that aren’t intrinsically rewarding. Maybe you can sort of pair them with an artificial reward or tell yourself that “you had an experience.” I don’t think you can truly trick yourself this way, though.