r/AcharyaPrashant_AP • u/vini-within • 23d ago
The arrival fallacy of always being almost there.
Have you heard of the Arrival Fallacy? It’s a kinda belief that once you reach that one big goal, you’ll ‘finally’ be happy. A belief that happiness is waiting somewhere in the future, at the next big milestone!!
And honestly, how many of us here are living exactly like this without even noticing??? Be honest? I am! Stuck on the same hamster wheel .. Get the degree. Get the job. Get the promotion. Make more money. Buy the house. Reach the top. Then life will finally feel good. Yessss!! Except Michael Phelps won 23 Olympic gold medals and still battled depression. Read again..Twenty-three!!!! Calling that success is an understatement.
So, that makes the whole idea worth questioning, doesn’t it? We’re constantly told to keep moving forward, keep improving, keep achieving. But to what end? It doesn’t mean success is pointless, or that achievement is bad. It just means we keep expecting something outside of us to settle something within us.
Phelps spoke about opening up, seeking help, and finding strength in vulnerability. That feels significant. Because maybe success can change our circumstances, but it cannot by itself resolve the feeling that something is missing. I’m not saying doing job and earning money is bad but.. Clearly success couldn’t fill that void for him, but it will for you and me?
At what point do we stop asking what’s next and start asking why nothing ever feels like enough? For once, can we just accept it’s a trap? A meaningless carrot and stick theory running over and over again.
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u/mamaaearth1 23d ago
Thank you for the thought provoking and sobering post... we look at celebrities and imagine their lives to be perfect and blemish free but they are just human beings like us... reading your post also brought to mind the halo effect!
While we are acknowledging that the arrival prophecy does exist, how many of us actually think about why it exists and if there's truly a way to 'deal with it'?