The 4 factors that keep us Unsatisfied

Hello guys, I was reading a book (I will tell you name of that book later). I guarantee you have experienced the feeling of boredom or emptiness after achieving things that you were constantly striving for. I will give you an example from my personal life.

When I was attempting final exams of 3rd year (10 papers with 2 critical subjects), I desperately wanted to clear my all subjects, I used to think that I will become more happy, more satisfied after clearing those exams. But, finally, when I cleared 10 subjects, my satisfaction or happiness, did not last for more than 2 hrs. I was feeling just how I was feeling before.

The same thing happened after getting Job. Why we constantly remain unsatisfied? By the way, we living in the best time of the human era. we are living in a well educated, more democratic, the healthiest environment in human history. Still, we are unsatisfied? Why?

I found an answer in this book. A human being is evolved in such a way that we should constantly remain unsatisfied. So, that he can protect himself from animals or any threat to him. If he remains satisfied he will never look for any improvement. But, that doesn’t mean we should remain constantly in a panic situation. Let’s get more into this concept with the 4 things that keep us constantly unsatisfied.

1. Boredom

Boredom means discomfort. Boredom means dissatisfaction. We always need something to go after. If we don’t have anything to strive for, we will look for temporary things to avoid the discomfort. We will grab our phone & watch celebrity gossip or play Pubg.

2. Negativity Bias

The 2nd thing that keeps us constantly in unsatisfied mode is Negativity Bias. We look at negative things more than positive ones. remember negatives things vividly than positive ones. Good things are good but bad things can kill you. That’s why Negativity bias helps us in a certain way. But, that doesn,t mean it should make us terrible.

3. Rumination

The 3rd thing is Rumination. It is our tendency to keep thinking about bad experiences. We chew the same mistake in mind again & again and then feel bad for feeling bad. Rumination happens when you make a big blunder like losing money in share or handling a thing badly. That makes you feel bad and you repeat these things in mind many times making you uncomfortable/dissatisfied.

If you look another way, this also helps. This keeps us away from same mistakes again. We remember the bad experience of accident & that is the reason next time we drive carefully. We remember a bad experience of not passing exams thus we study more next time. This is helpful but this makes us miserable.

4. Hedonic adaptation

Hedonic adaptation i.e “Returning quickly to baseline level of satisfaction despite whatever happens to us.” I have given my own example of feeling same even after passing an exam or getting a job. This also benefits us for constantly striving for better, more despite knowing all things are just temporary.

These are the 4 psychological factors that keep us constantly unsatisfied. Does a human being made for constant discomfort or dissatisfaction? Is futility our fate? Of Course, Not. Then what is the solution? The same dissatisfaction helped our species to make advancement. We can channel this dissatisfaction for making us better.

The solution is simple. Acceptance. From many self-help books, movies we have constantly bombarded that if we are not happy then we are not normal. Accepting the feeling bad or discomfort or dissatisfaction is not a bad thing. Accept that we always don’t need to be happy, It’s ok, I am not feeling good.

When we accept discomfort, we don’t look for avoiding it by watching the news or playing a game. This acceptance also helps us to avoid distractions. So, accept & strive for becoming better.

And, finally, It’s time to reveal the name of the book. It’s “Indistractable by Nir Eyal”. This book has some helpful methods to avoid distraction from your life & achieving things that really matter without getting distracted.