"If there's one thing humans excel at, it's finding increasingly imaginative ways to waste their lives away. Whether it's scrolling through TikTok, polishing résumés for jobs we don't want, or organizing our homes into Pinterest-worthy perfection while the only houseguest we're expecting is a spider weaving quietly in the corner, we seem determined to mistake activity for aliveness. Yet all of these pale in comparison to our greatest time-thief of all: the firm conviction that our real life, the one we're working hard in preparation"
"Psychologists call this the arrival fallacy, a term coined by Harvard researcher Tal Ben-Shahar to describe the belief that happiness and fulfillment will finally appear once we've achieved a certain milestone. Once we graduate, once we get the promotion, once we meet the right person-it all amounts to the same narrative where we convince ourselves that the real story of our life begins after the next comma, never at this period."
The arrival fallacy is the belief that happiness and fulfillment will appear only after reaching a future milestone. People chronically defer living by treating the present like a waiting room for tomorrow. Modern distractions—social media, resume polishing for unwanted jobs, and obsessive home organizing—mask activity as aliveness. Evolution favored anticipating threats and opportunities, so the brain prioritizes anticipation over satisfaction. Awareness of the arrival fallacy alone does not change behavior. Action before feeling ready, beginning with deliberate changes in language and behavior, is necessary to reclaim present happiness. Granting oneself permission to begin living now counters habitual postponement.
Read at Psychology Today
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