r/happiness

My whole life, I've seen the same theme in films and books: people finding true happiness in relationships after (mistakenly) thinking that achievements and possessions matter the most. Uncle Scrooge, every Christmass movie, the materialistic antagonist in half of the books, religions preaching to respect the immaterial instead of the material etc.

Scientific studies also seem to point at that, although I admit I usually just read the titles.

However, I've always felt that this doesn't apply to me. Whenever I think about my happiest moments in life, they are related to professional, academic or personal achievements. Not to seeing a newborn family member, hugging family, hearing "I love you", laughing with friends and family or anything similar to this. Instead, I think of stuff like better numbers at work and recognition for them, academic achievements, improving my body, mastering foreign languages, all the books I've read in the past months etc. Family and friends still feel nice, but not nearly as good.

I can't imagine being 60 and thinking "oh, shit, I should have focused on friends/family". Even if I start needing them, logically, this wouldn't have been the thing that made me happy in the first 60 years of my life, so it wouldn't feel like a loss.

I'm still in my twenties, so you could say I might change. However, your personality remains pretty stable your whole life. I'm curious - are there other people who feel that way, or do you think this is a common source of fulfillment in life?

So I was watching the movie ‘Soul’ and the scene above really stuck with me.

I realised, we often spend our life chasing things. That once we get this, everything will be alright. ONCE we acquire this particular thing, we will finally be happy. But the scene above signifies that happiness can be found where you already are, not in the future and not in the things you wanna achieve.

So basically the point I’m trying to make is, I have heard that if you really obsess over a goal and make it your whole life, thinking you will only allow yourself to be happy once you achieve that goal, then you will forever be working towards that goal but never actually achieve it, because of the extreme obsession which will ruin your chances of actually achieving it , and letting you be happy.

What do you guys think? Is it true? Could desperately fixating on something ruin your chances of actually getting that thing?

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