In The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself, physicist Sean Carroll reminds readers of a mistake we’re all prone to making.
The mistake we make in putting emphasis on happiness is to forget that life is a process, defined by activity and motion, and to search instead for the one perfect state of being. There can be no such state, since change is the essence of life.1
This is a common trap; one that few if any of us avoid completely.
The equation goes like this: “If I achieve X, obtain Y, or experience Z, I will be content (and free of additional wants).”
As Carroll points out, though, things change. And even if external circumstances remain the same, we are wont to shift the goalposts we, ourselves, impose.
This tendency can foster a fixation with the future; preoccupation with that which appears missing in the present; perhaps even despair over what we failed to achieve in the past.
