All road to “bad” land starts with that one-time decision. And it always has to do with emotional rewards — according to Schwarz, a professor at the University of Southern California.
Emotional rewards then — diverse themselves into 2 perspectives — short-term or long-term. Sometimes the short-term reward correlates with the long-term one, like learning new things for example. But other times, they are contradicting — like having sweets even when you have diabetes.
With that goes the basis of why doing bad feels so good — that is because the behavior triggers by dopamine of your imagination about short-term emotional rewards. If you choose to be not attentive to long-term consequences, the idea of “bad” would fail to pause you in the moment of decision — either from having the sweets when you should not, or playing unfair to gain an advantage.
And although dopamine-rushed action is impulsive (that is one-time), whether it becomes compulsive (that is a lifetime) or not is entirely dependent on your desire to repeat the memory. If you did enjoy the thrill and are living in a condition that is lack of joy, the memory can re-trigger the yearn for repeating the dopamine rush — which makes doing bad impulsively become compulsively.