We all want to be happy. We all want to grow, succeed, and achieving our goals generates feelings of happiness both from the sense of accomplishment and from the rewards gained as a result. There is nothing wrong or dangerous about envisioning things we aspire to and setting our sights on pursuing them. The harm starts brewing when we make our happiness purely conditional on future external achievements. If happiness can only occur in the future, how can we ever actually achieve it?
It is in our nature to look beyond our current situation and desire more. If we earn enough money to buy a shiny new thing, we feel the urge to then buy two next time which are bigger and even more shiny. We achieve one romantic milestone we begin craving another. We reach 1K followers we start wondering what 100K would be like or 1M. The rush of any achievement, and the joys of any attached rewards, promptly tempt a desire for more.
This is not to say it is automatically harmful to want things, to want to grow and improve, to want more for ourselves. There is nothing wrong with a little ‘divine dissatisfaction’. It can be a helpful, healthy thing inspiring us to keep striving to better ourselves and the circumstances of our lives. There is always room for growth and improvement. The desire for more is not harmful, the harm stems from making our happiness and contentment conditional upon attaining some external prize. The infamous phrase “I’ll be happy when…”
I’ll be happy when I get what I want for Christmas. I’ll be happy when I weigh X amount. I’ll be happy when I get the promotion. I’ll be happy when I get the new car. When I get married. When the living room is redecorated. When the kids do well in school. When I get my tattoo. When we get to the resort. When it’s Friday night. When, when, when….
Our impulse towards craving more can also be amplified by seeing apparent evidence of other people achieving the ‘more’ we are envisioning. Seeing our neighbors buy two big shiny things, hearing about someone else’s romantic adventures, knowing that someone we follow has amassed over 1M followers. If we can see evidence our desires are possible and already being enjoyed by others, it makes us crave them all the more. Nothing makes us truly want something more than…