You finally reach the thing you were working hard for. And for a day, or maybe a week, it feels worthwhile. And then, quite quickly, you start to feel flat. The satisfaction drains out of it and you find yourself already looking for the next thing.
Most of us have experienced this at least once and we think it’s the way life is. In fact, wanting more - and its related ideas of being more, doing more, having more, and even giving more - has become one of the pervasive themes of our society. So much so that we see it as a virtue, and think it is responsible for all the progress of civilisation we enjoy today.
But here’s a telling question, and one I want to ask you. Despite all the growth and progress, do we actually enjoy life more today?
Do you enjoy life more today?
Because there seems to be a paradox in our modern world. Despite record levels of technological advancement, physical comforts, and the availability of solutions for every problem - physical, mental, and psychological - it seems that people have never been unhappier. The use of antidepressants and medication is at record levels. Stress and anxiety are, for more and more people, chronic conditions.
We explain this as the cost of progress. But we have to ask ourselves: is it really worth it?
I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t want to solve our problems or live to our full potential. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with feeling a sense of purpose and reaching for an outcome. But I’m questioning the assumption that wanting more, continually, is the way to do it.
You may recall in a previous article I talked about how we have two lives:
the life of the Real, which we experience through our five senses
the life of the Imaginary, which we experience through our thoughts
The brain evolved to solve problems by responding to information from the real world, through what we see, hear, touch, smell and taste.
But language gave us the ability to create another world entirely, one made of thoughts, memories, imagined futures and ideas.
This second world can activate exactly the same biological responses as the real one, but it doesn’t provide the information the brain evolved to use in deciding what to do next.
Think about a squirrel. In the autumn it gathers nuts, stores enough to get it through the winter, and then it stops. It knows when to stop because everything it was responding to - the shortening light, the cold coming into the air, the food in front of it - is real. The environment signals what to do, and when the conditions change, so does the behaviour. The squirrel doesn’t keep pushing, and it has all that it needs.
But thoughts don’t work this way. When you respond to something in your imagination - such as the amount you should have by now, the person you should have become, or what’s missing that is preventing you from being happy - you’re not responding to a set of environmental cues that are happening right now. You’re responding to a description of your life, not your actual life.
The problem is that your brain treats imagined problems as though they are real. It activates the same biological systems that evolved to deal with threats and opportunities in the physical world. But unlike the physical world, an imagined problem doesn’t provide the sensory information the brain evolved to use in deciding what to do next.
Without that information, the brain cannot properly resolve the problem. Instead, it keeps searching because it never receives the information it evolved to use.
No matter how much positive thinking you do, how much you visualise and affirm your goals, or how many plans and strategies you create, your thoughts can never give the brain the kind of information it is looking for. This is because no matter how hard you try, the imaginary world can always produce something else to worry about or feel is missing. And because none of it provides the sensory information the brain evolved to use, the search never comes to an end.
The important thing to realise is that this dissatisfaction isn't a flaw in your character. It's the natural result of the human brain trying to solve a problem it wasn't designed to solve.
Once you see this, you realise why it’s such a problem. It creates a game where the rules are set up so that you can never win. You can never even finish the game.
When you’re continually chasing the next goal, you give your brain very little chance to deal with what is here right now. When you are in the habit of continually focusing on the next thing, the gap between where you are and where you want to be always remains - and it is all in the imaginary world of your thoughts, not present reality.
The more thinking, the more worrying, the more pushing we do, the more it keeps the brain stuck in the Story Trap. It keeps us in the loop not just of dissatisfaction, but of unrealised potential.
For many years I was on a growth path, continually trying to achieve more in my life. Looking back on it, the strange thing was that I never really got what I truly wanted - which was to be happy, satisfied, and at peace with my life.
Even more strange was that I only began to get these things after life stripped away my ability to keep chasing the future. When nothing I tried was working anymore, I was forced to stop looking for another strategy and start paying attention to what was actually in front of me.
When I stopped arguing with life, and simply allowed it to show me what to do next, things began to work. I was more productive. I got more and better results. And I felt a lot better along the way.
True progress only comes when we stop arguing with what is happening now.
And when you do, you may find, as I did, that feeling better along the way is itself the destination.
If you'd like to experience the difference for yourself, I've created a tool designed to help your brain separate the imaginary world from the real one. It shows you what to focus on next, often with surprising clarity. You can try it free here.
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