stages, game theory's homo economicus, and time orientation

Right now I'm thinking of Kubler-Ross and her set of responses to loss. I'm wondering: do you think that given an awareness and understanding of these states, being aware of any given state you happen to be in diminishes it's importance? What I'm trying to get at applies to anything that progresses in stages, and in the case of Kubler-Ross it's the following question: if you're actively aware of being in the anger phase, is your anger less important knowing that it will eventually subside to acceptance?

In a strange way, I'm reminded of the Free Rider Dilemma that appears in game theory. Here the individual must decide whether or not to contribute a donation to the development of a shared resource, where if the sum of everyone's contributions reaches a certain threshold then everyone benefits from the resource (say, for example, that a community center can be built with the pooled money), but if the sum of everyone's contributions fails to meet that threshold then no one benefits from the resource because it fails to manifest (and individual contributions are lost). Where perfect knowledge exists, the only case where it rationally makes sense to donate is when your donation will tip the scale (see Len Fisher's example matrix here from his book Rock, Paper, Scissors). In other words, the only donation that makes sense is the last one.

When it comes to things that progress in stages, I'm wondering if the same idea applies: the only stage that matters is the last one. Note that in the reality of the Free Rider Dilemma, perfect knowledge almost never exists (every participant knows that their contribution only make sense if theirs is the one that tips the scale, but everyone makes their contribution at the same time, or at least w/o the knowledge of others), but in the case of development in known stages, perfect knowledge is in fact the very problem.

A couple of thoughts come to mind that address the question. First, this analysis is very close to the idea of backward induction that makes rational and logical sense, and is consistently proven mathematically as the best strategy in a number of decision-making games. Backward induction essentially operates with perfect knowledge of the final stage of a process, and works in reverse to determine an optimal strategy. It leads to counterintuitive but mathematically and logically sound strategy of defecting on the first round of the Centipede game (where a pot of money to be split equally is passed back and forth between two players, increasing in value each time passed, but at any point any player with the pot in hand may defect and take a 60% majority) and the similarly sound strategy of asking for the least amount of reimbursement for lost goods in the Traveler's Dilemma.

But these strategies are highly counterintuitive, and not surprisingly are rarely replicated in actual simulations. So the second thing comes to mind is Phillip Zimbardo's thoughts on time-orientation:

In short, he compares the happiness and success of people with varying focuses on the past, present, and future, concluding that there's some optimal blend of sacrificing the rewards of one for the rewards of the others (think: instant vs delayed gratification). And I think that ties a lot of these problems together. Were we all perfectly future orientated, yeah the homo economicus strategies rational game theory predicts would manifest themselves in real life. And knowing that acceptance is inevitable would make things like anger and fear meaningless and even more irrational (read: in more than just the sense that they are emotions, in the even greater sense that they ultimately wouldn't matter).

But clearly that's not really the best path to success/happiness. That path lies in a blend of future, present and past orientations, where things in the present ultimately do matter and should be appreciated, indulged in, loved, hated, and experienced. Focusing solely on the future, simply enough, means overlooking the meaningfulness of the present. 

(interestingly problem: it means overlooking the past, too. In fact, this might also be the solution to another problem I've been thinking on: the similarly "sound/rational" strategy of ignoring sunk costs. Another time; too much for one post.)

What's your time-orientation strategy??