During a conversation at THRIVE!, we were discussing the contrast of striving for more and becoming complacent with where we’re at.

I just couldn’t figure out why happiness, for most people, always seemed to be down the road. I, like many others, get caught up in the feeling of when I find that perfect relationship I’ll be happy, when I get a new house I’ll be happy, or when I make more money, etc. Why did it seem to be something I didn’t currently have that would make me happy?

Then the revelation came to me…if I was happy now I would never progress. I’d be stuck because “I’m happy” and wouldn’t need to change anything. I was in fear of becoming complacent. So on my quest to not become complacent, I made the “now” seem undesirable. Subconsciously, I felt if the “now” was miserable, it would compel me to do something different. This pattern inadvertently put me in a place of perpetually chasing happiness.

For example, my family recently decided to move. After we made the decision, I started noticing all the things I didn’t like about my house. Suddenly everything seemed to annoy me, the screen door would stick, the sidewalk had cracks, and the carpet was old. I couldn’t wait to get out of the place. We ended up touring numerous homes that were more expensive but less appealing than ours. Frustrated, I concluded that if we couldn’t find a house we liked, we would just stay in ours. Once that thought was thrown into the mix, I started thinking of all the cool things we could do to our house and actually got excited about staying in it.

What I realized from the experience is that it was okay to like my house AND want a new one. I didn’t have to make it seem horrible. We weren’t all created to stay in the same house/job/marriage for 100 years (unless that’s what works for you). But for some reason, we’ve caged ourselves into a belief that that’s what we “have” to do. So we’ve created this system to get ourselves unstuck, a system where the current situation is made to suck in order to move us into a new situation.

So the questions become: “Can I like where I am now (my house/job/spouse) and yet want something different?” and “Can I be happy now and still want more?” Is that possible?