What makes us want something different?
I hear many people wishing for something they don’t have. There’s a sparkle in their eye like they know if they could just have this one thing, they’d be satisfied.
But they obtain that one thing, and soon they move on to another desire.
Is this the normal state for humans or just modern, Western people? Why can’t we be satisfied ?
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8 Answers
Some people don’t like predictability or monotony. They want to experience newness.
We can become bored with anything after spending enough time with it, even a Bugatti Veyron.
We all desire something we don’t have because it gives us a goal to work towards. If we ever got everything we could ever want, we would become bored with our lives and have nothing left to live for.
I think it can be more than wanting “things,” as well. I know people who say, “If I could just lose 20 pounds I would be happy.” Or find a mate or a fulfilling career. I do it too – “If I could just be pretty, I’m sure I would be happier.” There’s no way for me to know that though, in any of those situations.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and we always want what we haven’t got.
Our brains are wired to ignore the familiar and pay attention to the new. Exposure to novelty—such as acquiring a new possession, or even just a new comment in your fluther inbox— triggers a dopamine release.
That undoubtedly has conferred an evolutionary advantage in that encounters with novelty are prime opportunities for learning, and dopamine facilitates learning. Because dopamine is the central component of the brain’s reward system, we end up constantly looking for something new to trigger a fresh dopamine jolt.
Which, by the way, is why Flutherers obsessively refresh the Home page, hoping that a new question will appear, and feel restless if it doesn’t you know what I’m talking about. How would you feel if no new question appeared for a whole day? You’d get pretty antsy wouldn’t you?All of those thousands of comments and other interactions you’ve had in the past aren’t enough. It’s the arrival of something new that stimulates you. That’s dopamine. It’s addictive. In fact, dopamine is basically what makes anything addictive. We’re addicted to novelty.
I just call this avarice, you know, one of the “deadly sins.” Mwwaaahhh!!
My philosophy has always been to concentrate on what i’ve got. Works out just peachy ;¬}
I believe it’s just another way to avoid being with ourselves
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