You’re Never Going to Be Satisfied With Life

[Vince]

Why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied? We live in the safest, healthiest, most well-educated, most democratic time in history—and yet, some part of the human psyche causes us to look for an escape from things stirring inside us constantly.

As the eighteenth-century poet Samuel Johnson said, “My life is one long escape from myself.” Me too, brother. Me too.
The truth is, we’re not wired to feel content or satisfied. Ever.

There’s a simple reason for that: as expressed by researchers for the Review of General Psychology, “If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances.”

In other words, feeling contented wasn’t good for the species.


Our ancestors worked harder and strove further because they evolved to be perpetually perturbed, and so we remain today.

The Four Components of Dissatisfaction​

Four psychological factors make satisfaction temporary.

The first is boredom. The lengths people will
go to avoid boredom are shocking. Literally.


A 2014 study published in Science observed participants who were asked to sit in a room and think for fifteen minutes. The room was empty except for a device that allowed participants to mildly but painfully electrocute themselves.

“Why would anyone want to do that?” you might ask.

When asked beforehand, every participant in the study said they would pay money to avoid being shocked. However, when left alone in the room with the machine and nothing else to do, 67 percent of men and 25 percent of women shocked themselves. Many did so multiple times.

Why It's So Hard to Ever Feel Satisfied

We’re just not wired to feel contentment.

www-psychologytoday-com.cdn.ampproject.org

 

[Phil Goodman]

I’d say a lot of that is common sense, but it’s still really interesting. Also, for point number three that can be a really good thing as well. While it sucks to get desensitized to good things, sometimes getting desensitized for bad things can be good(as long as you continue to work to improve the situation if possible). And his recommendations shed a lot of insight into why so many people are miserable these days imho. He points out how it’s important to not distract yourself from discontent or discomfort, which is what more and more people are spending more and time doing whether it’s video games, social media and other endless scrolling, movies, binge watching shows, etc. And while the vast majority of humans suffered from scarcity, we suffer from surplus. Couple an easy life with less opportunities for mastering things with constant distraction and you have a recipe for what we see today.


And I think this topic kind of ties into TRT as well. The irony is that while it gives many people their motivation back resulting in more accomplishments, I think it also makes you less likely to be content with your circumstances. In that way there really is no way to cheat biology/physiology. I also think that is one of the things that increases anxiety for people on TRT(knowing or feeling we should do more in the world to improve our situation…whether that’s conscious or unconscious thoughts). The body/mind can process a lot of things and we may not always be aware of what’s going on up there. One thing that really helped me was meditation, and in particular I think shadow work greatly reduced anxiety. Just something I thought I’d throw out there since it helped me a lot, not trying to derail the thread.




I also found this to be an interesting podcast covering the problems with being content in today’s world.

Podcast #796: The Life We're Looking For

In the quiet moments of our lives, we can all sense that our hearts long for something, though we often don’t know what that something is. We seek an answer in our phones, and while they can provide some sense of extension and fulfillment — a feeling of magic — the use of technology also […]

www.artofmanliness.com

 

[Fred52]

I take contention with the "boredom" claim. That's not boredom...that's pure curiosity. Now shocking yourself multiple times is unusual...but once? I would be "shocked" if most people didn't. We are curious by nature. That's how we learned shit.

 

[tropicaldaze1950]

My 75 y.o. father wasn't satisfied and the only thing that stopped him was terminal cancer. Otherwise, we would have fixed up the old sailboat we'd purchased with cash advances on our credit cards, learned how to sail and eventually, sail from Florida to Italy. His enthusiasm and encouragement spurred me on to keep striving and pursue my dreams. What stopped me was when bipolar illness returned and blew up my life. But that's what's been spurring me on to experiment on myself in an attempt to bring this illness to heel, with the dream of reclaiming some of the life I've lost.

My father's words are appropriate: 'When you stop trying you start dying.'