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As a kid, you want to get older so you can do x, y, or z. You think that when you get older you’ll be able to do whatever you want. As a young adult, you wait for when you finally earn that college degree so your life can begin.
Your idea of happiness then becomes tied to the perfect place to live, the right job/promotion or finding “the one”. But once you have found those things, new questions begin:
- When are you getting married?
- When will you have a child?
- When will you have more children?
Now here you are on Instagram, staring at pictures of your friend’s vacations and placing the marker for your happiness on an island or country you haven’t visited or a car that doesn’t seem affordable. Maybe, there’s shoes, a watch or something else that you’ve determined is a sign of your success.
You hope that when you retire, you can really start living and doing what you want. Constantly sacrificing now for contentment later.
No matter how much you achieve there’s always something just beyond your grasp that feels like the source of your happiness. If you can just reach that thing, you can stop striving.
And, even though you have managed to accomplish all your past goals, they don’t feel satisfying. You never really feel like you arrived at the magical destination that is supposed to feel like happiness. Instead of being present, you are living in the future and thinking the future offers you more than whatever you’re experiencing in the present. But that future never arrives.
In his blog Robert Holden, PhD states:
Destination Addiction is an attempt to get on with life faster in the hope that we will enjoy our lives better. [People] live in the “not now,” they are psychologically absent, and they disregard everything they have.
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You spend much of your life enduring or racing past that now moment while filled with angst that you’re not moving forward fast enough. Modern life isn’t set up for relaxation and social media is making it feel even more impossible to simply enjoy your life.
The constant need to be doing something is driving everyone to try, by outward appearances, to check all the boxes in their lives and to share that with every one of their social media “friends.”
There was a time when only celebrities felt the pressure to create a fabulous life for people to envy.
Nowadays, “regular people”, feel pressured to portray themselves as taking fabulous vacations, buying expensive material things and hitting all the approved targets in life so their friends can congratulate them on being an adult. There is a hollow, emptiness to it all. A sense of always running for the next target.
When you deny your ability to be happy with circumstances as they are, you’re diminishing what you already have.
There’s nothing wrong with creating goals and pursuing them, but the challenge is not to think your relief can only be found in achieving that goal. You can enjoy your life right now, just as it is.
How can you tell if you have destination addiction?
Are you telling yourself, “I’ll be happy when…”?
- I lose those last ten pounds, then I’ll feel better.
- My kids are out of the house and I have some peace.
- I find the perfect partner who will want to do everything I like to do.
These things may or may not come, but the reality is there’s no guarantee they will provide you with the satisfaction you think they will. Moreover, eventually, you will get used to them just like everything else and move on to the next thing.
It is also possible that you’re pushing the people you love to achieve something other than their current circumstances because you believe that will equal your, or their happiness. You may not be allowing yourself to appreciate what you have right now or loving them as they are right now.
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.” ― Eckhart Tolle
How do you stop attaching your happiness to some point in the future?
It requires gratitude. Look at everything you have already accomplished and feel grateful for it. Stop focusing on what’s missing and look at what you have. You can set and work on your goals, but it’s important to know that you can be happy right now; even if you don’t have everything you (or others) think you should have.
Feeling dissatisfied until you have whatever you think will make you happy, is a choice. Give yourself permission to enjoy the process of getting there as much as arriving at your destination.
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