How to Overcome The Arrival Fallacy

The only Zen on the tops of mountains is the Zen that you bring up there with you

Wherever you are, the goal post is always 10 yards down the field. If you develop a mindset “If I just accomplish ___, THEN I’ll arrive,” you are in for a rude awakening. There is no arriving. The sooner you realize this, the better.

The Arrival Fallacy was first coined by the behavioral scientist Tal Ben-Shahar. It describes the commonly held illusion that once we make it, once we attain our goal or reach our destination, whatever it may be, we will achieve lasting happiness and fulfillment. But this simply is not true. We are wired to want more — it’s the result of millennia of evolution, of living amidst scarcity for most of our species’ collective history. We are suckers for the chase and struggle to be content, at least for any significant duration, with the reward. In neuroscience terms, our “wanting” drive is more powerful than our “liking” drive.

Once we are aware of the arrival fallacy we ought to do everything we can to find happiness, fulfillment, and energy in the process of pursuing our goals instead of having such lofty expectations about what will happen when we do (or don’t) attain them. In his memoir From the Outside, the NBA basketball superstar Ray Allen wrote that after winning…