"You always want what you can't have" is a phrase most often repeated by people trying to make a point that you should be satisfied with what you already have, rather than trying to attain more for fulfillment. After all, if you're just looking to the next big thing, you'll miss what's right in front of your eyes ... or so every romantic comedy ever has taught us.
Turns out, those people are wrong, at least to some extent. Studies have shown that it's not actually the achievement of goals that drives people onward — it's the desire to seek out bigger and better things. Turns out, wanting what you can't have might actually be the secret to a happier life. How many times have you been told "no," "you can't," or that you aren't allowed to do something? When we're children, a natural reaction to this is a temper tantrum — arms flailing, lungs emptying, eyes leaking tears. We want to do whatever they won't allow us. But when you're older, you find ways to deal with these upsets discreetly. A teenager might sneak out after curfew; a young adult might just ignore all rationality and do what they're told not to do anyway, which is why no one likes to hear "I told you so." Learning consequences from our actions — and gaining wisdom from experience after we've messed up — is something that's bred into us from a young age. But as you grow, so does your need to explore and understand the world around you. And being told that you can't have something just makes it that much more desirable. Why? Because it's sparked a little something within you called curiosity. And once your brain latches onto that urge, it's hard to get it to let go. Curiosity is the single part of the human brain that propels us forward. It's what makes us choose things for ourselves — both stupid and incredibly smart — and guides us to new discoveries in personal and professional aspects of our lives. It's also what gives us the animalistic desire to follow said curiosity down whatever dark alleyway it leads us. According to Jack Panskepp, the author of Affective Neuroscience, the reason that people keep exploring and trying to experience everything life has to offer is because it's bred into our very DNA. Every mammal has the same need to seek out circumstances in their environment and explore whatever will make their chances of survival better. Since it's linked to our reward-pleasure centers, your brain actually rewards you for pursuing whatever you're curious about. So, wanting to get to know a new person, getting that job promotion, finding new music or exploring different areas of the world is actually so you can feel the thrill of the hunt, not the completion of a task. It's why putting the puzzle together feels better than staring at it when it's all done. When you've reached your goal, it's over. But in the process of achieving it, you feel the happiest. Pursuing the next big thing in your life can actually make you happier, because you're moving forward and striving to attain something. In our very goal-oriented and reward-focused brains, that's the thing that keeps us smiling. The need to quest and pursue things in our lives is a natural human inclination, but can often come with unsavory consequences. Wanting more, desiring a better outcome, and trying to make things more beneficial for you is actually more rewarding than achieving those desires. This is the same reason that people who win the lottery can be content playing for nothing after years, but don't gain any happiness once they've actually won that big jackpot. This is why it's important to balance curiosity with common sense. Knowing that something isn't attainable because it might be detrimental to your health, circumstances, or psyche is far different than thinking you can't do something and working harder to achieve it. It's the difference between wanting a married man because you can't have him or deciding to train and run that 5K you've been talking about forever. One is obviously better for you than the other, but your brain still wants them both equally, and knowing a man is married might actually make him more attractive to you for this very same reason. So, as it turns out, the key to a happier life is pursuing the things that will make you happy and are also healthy for you. Setting and achieving goals is a good thing in your life; find what piques your curiosity and use it to make your life better. Go ahead and dream, pine away for more wealth, better relationships, or a sexy partner. Accomplish goals that you'd never even imagined, and explore every bit of the world. Work to achieve those things and then reap the rewards from your efforts. Just make sure in the pursuit of your own happiness that you're not ignoring common sense to trample on someone else's. This article was written by Merethe Najjar from YourTango and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].
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50 Ways Life Has Changed in the Last 50 Years
We’ve all heard members of older generations start a story with an eye-roll-prompting, “Back in my day,” which is then followed by a seemingly endless list of ways things have changed in the intervening years (generally portrayed in a negative lens). However, while those tales of walking 10 miles in the snow may be a little stale, there’s no denying that life has changed in some seriously significant ways over the last half-century. From advances in technology and medicine to seismic paradigm shifts in romance and religion, life is majorly different today than it was just 50 years ago. Herein, we’ve rounded up the many, many ways how. Read more: www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/smart-living/50-ways-life-has-changed-in-the-last-50-years/ss-AAztAUQ?li=BBnb7Kz eselling old stuff that you no longer use can be a great way to make some extra cash with minimal effort - in fact, you'd be surprised at how much money some random "vintage" items can make you.
But there are also plenty of items that once bought start losing their value almost immediately. From wedding dresses to video games, here are nine things that you should be ready to take a loss on when you resell. Click or swipe through to see them all. Read more: www.msn.com/en-us/money/smartspending/9-things-that-lose-their-value-as-soon-as-you-buy-them/ss-AAyS8X3?li=BBnb7Kz The lottery is a curious thing. Most of us don’t pay much attention to it except for those once-in-a-blue-moon occasions when it gets up to an astronomical amount—or at least more astronomical than its generally comparatively huge amount—and news outlets kick off a fervor about how outlandish the figure is. But while the lottery seems like a pretty straightforward premise (pay a small amount, maybe win a big amount), the whole shebang is actually chock-full of strange surprises, curious characters, and fascinating facts. Herein, you'll find a jackpot of the most bonkers of the bunch. Read more: www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/smart-living/30-surprising-facts-about-the-lottery/ss-AAyXvO0?li=BBnb7Kz
Everyone has regrets, but you always imagine that those regrets revolve around the mistakes that you think you made. Maybe you regret calling off your wedding. Maybe you wish you hadn’t married the man you chose. Maybe you want to quit your job and move to Bali, but you’re worried it’s the wrong choice.
We focus so much on the decisions we make in the moment, but a new study published in the journal Emotion indicates that the old adage still rings true: it’s not the things you do in life that you regret, it’s the things you don’t do. In a paper entitled “The Ideal Road Not Taken,” Cornell psychologists identified three elements that make up a person’s sense of self. Your actual self consists of qualities that you believe you possess. Your ideal self is made up of the qualities you want to have. Your ought self is the person you feel you should have been, according to your obligations and responsibilities. In surveying the responses of hundreds of participants in six studies, the researchers found that, when asked to name their single biggest regret in life, 76 percent of participants said it was not fulfilling their ideal self. This indicates that we might have a flawed attitude toward how to avoid regret. We live in a world in which we are told that we’ll have a great life if we follow the rules. So you figure that if you do all of the things that society expects of you—act like a good citizen, get married at the appropriate time, make enough money to pay the bills—that you’ll feel happy and fulfilled with your life. But those are all qualities associated with your ought self, which the study found people have limited regrets about (in part because they actually act on decisions associated with it). But when it comes to your dreams and aspirations, people are more likely to let them just drift by unrealized, and that’s what really stings later in life. “People are quicker to take steps to cope with failures to live up to their duties and responsibilities (ought-related regrets) than their failures to live up to their goals and aspirations (ideal-related regrets),” the study reads. “When we evaluate our lives, we think about whether we’re heading toward our ideal selves, becoming the person we’d like to be. Those are the regrets that are going to stick with you, because they are what you look at through the windshield of life,” Tom Gilovich, the the Irene Blecker Rosenfeld Professor of Psychology at Cornell and lead author of the paper, said. “The ‘ought’ regrets are potholes on the road. Those were problems, but now they’re behind you. To be sure, there are certain failures to live up to our ‘ought’ selves that are extremely painful and can haunt a person forever; so many great works of fiction draw upon precisely that fact. But for most people those types of regrets are far outnumbered by the ways in which they fall short of their ideal selves.” The results of the study indicate that it’s not enough to encourage people to just “do the right thing.” We need to establish that it’s vital for people to act on their hopes and dreams, and that it isn’t normal to just keep putting them off indefinitely. “In the short term, people regret their actions more than inactions,” Gilovich said. “But in the long term, the inaction regrets stick around longer.” It also implies that we need to stop making excuses for our own inaction. So learn that language you’ve always wanted to study. Take that backpacking trip through Asia you’ve been talking about for ages. Write that book that’s been tinkering around in your head for years. Don’t leave it for tomorrow. There’s only today. Diana Bruk 5/30/2018 |
AuthorKeith Kelly currently lives in Rio Rancho New Mexico. Archives
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