Why You’re Rarely Satisfied With Getting What You Want (And How to Fix It)
2 exercises from ancient philosophy to make sure you keep enjoying life.
Being truly satisfied is a lot harder than it seems.
You can work hard on goals only to feel disappointed by their achievement. Or wait eagerly for a holiday to discover the anticipation was the main event.
We get glimpses of satisfaction in what we do, but it’s often tainted by an unwelcome whisper:
Is this it?
You’re not ungrateful and you’re not destined to be unhappy. The reality is that natural selection designed your mind to survive, not be content — and this makes for a complicated dance between getting what you want and enjoying it.
Bad Times Come From Bad Predictions
I quit my job recently, but the expected joy must’ve missed the memo.
Dreaming of this moment got me through a difficult year of writing. No more 5 am alarms and writing in lunch breaks. No more juggling work with article deadlines. No more multiple identities.
But as you can expect, it hasn’t gone quite as expected. Which is precisely the problem.
