Let’s not fall for the arrival fallacy.
Never heard of it?
It’s about the expectation that after you reach a certain level of X, you will finally achieve happiness.
And it’s a lie. I find it sad to see all the people that chase this ideology.
What a waste of energy – and more importantly – time.
If I only had that house, car, purse, vacation, or job – I would finally be happy.
In the documentary Jim & Andy, actor Jim Carry says: “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.”
He got it right. Because people want meaning.
In his book Happier, Tal Ben-Shahar describes the “arrival fallacy,” the belief that when you arrive at a certain destination, you’ll be happy. (Other fallacies include the “floating world fallacy,” the belief that immediate pleasure, cut off from future purpose, can bring happiness, and the “nihilism fallacy,” the belief that it’s not possible to become happier.) The arrival fallacy is a fallacy because, though you may anticipate great happiness in arrival, arriving rarely makes you as happy as you anticipate.
-Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
