Future Disillusionment

Notes

Claim

Future disillusionment is when we imagine that we will "be happy when x", when we depend our happiness on an external status of the future, like reaching a goal or gaining status, wealth or property that will "finally" grant us happiness, only to discover that we are no more happier (or even worse) than we have previously been Disappointment is the gap between expectations and reality.

Explanation

We set our Expectations shape wellbeing through the gap between desires and reality way too high, which causes us to crash when we fail to reach them.

The reverse of "I'll be happy when" is "I was happy when" We look to the past when the future is unclear. We fool ourselves to think that we were so happy in the past simply because we choose to forget all the problems and focus only on the positive, even if at that moment we weren't as happy as we claim now to have been.

Why it Matters

It can lead to Depression is chronic despair from helplessness and lost meaning and Burnout is chronic exhaustion from overwhelming demands because we can chase our entire lives a dream that would be empty and pointless, and we would have been better off if we stayed exactly where we are.

Examples

Supporters

Opposers

Either because we already have a new goal to reach Focusing on process and consistency yields better results than obsessing over outcomes, or that we are not mindful of the good that we already have mindfulness Happiness is an internal state Happiness is contentment Practicing gratitude shifts perspective toward positive wellbeing.

Open Questions

Visual

Overview

🔼Topic:: Status Quo and Inertia ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::