The Pursuit Of Wanting More

in #writing7 years ago

Wanting more is natural. Wanting to see more, do more, have more, we all experience the feeling of desiring for something new.

It is because human beings have explored their desire of wanting more which is the reason for all of the advancement that we see in civilization today. Human progress isn't automatic and it isn't inevitable, it takes determined individuals to make the step forward toward something new.

There is nothing inherently wrong in wanting more for your life or wanting more for those around you. It is because of our desire for more that we push forth to achieve new levels, and accomplish dreams that we might never have thought were possible. In this way, wanting more helps to not only make our own life better but the lives of everyone around us. Strengthening the individual, in-turn strengthens the community that this individual is a part of.

Do We Often Want More Than We Need? Absolutely.

There is a psychological term for this desperate pursuit of wanting more, even when we have an abundance already, and it's referred to as the Hedonic treadmill.

The hedonic treadmill is known as the tendency of humans to resort quickly back to a seemingly stable level of happiness even after they might have just experienced a major positive life event.

We might think that if we could just get that one promotion at work that all of our problems in life would be solved, but it turns out that with those promotions and advancements, comes along with it a correlated rise in expectations and desires.

In other words, if you get promoted then you are likely to raise your standard of living to that level and therefore you will still have problems and you will still find yourself longing for more.

Wanting more can be a difficult desire for many to deal with, in the way that it can negatively impact their life and deteriorate their happiness. If you are always focused on what you don't have and what you still need to accomplish, then it can prevent you from enjoying your life today and feeling satisfied with what you have accomplished thus far.

One of the quickest ways to readjusting a potentially unhealthy desire for more, is to try and re-gain a little healthy perspective.

You could think about how much you hate your job, or you could think about how lucky you are to have a job and about the millions of people who would likely trade places with you in order to have that job.

You could focus all of your energy on how badly you want that new car for yourself, or you could instead focus on how much you feel blessed to have the car that you have at this very moment.

You could sit there in coach class and stew about how you long to fly first class or private, or you could marvel at the fact that you get to experience the activity of flying at all.

Longing for things isn't what is going to make us happy, for many people it's quite the opposite in that it makes them feel depressed. They don't have enough video games, they don't have enough clothes or friends, they don't have enough money, and so on.

Don't get me wrong, it's important to have goals for your life and something that makes you want to get up and live life and move forward, but if we are always strained with desire for what we don't have then it might keep us from enjoying life right now.

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The information that is posted above is not intended or implied to ever be used as any substitute for professional medical advice, or diagnosis or treatment. The above is posted for informational purposes only.

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

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Great post and like you touched on, I found much more happiness within myself by being content. All do I have had a pretty blessed life so I realize might be easier for me than some less fortunate

Sounds like the second noble truth:
Suffering stems from desire.
There is nothing wrong with desiring more for you and others, it's only suffering when we aren't mindful of how it relates to us and we peg our happiness on not having achieved that or on being separated from the desired outcome.

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Thanks for this post. A good reminder for me.

Great blog. I can see this becoming a book one day. Very insightful.

I agree and it is even harder to live in a culture where people always want more and more things. I've learned to live a simpler life.

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