Why Progress hates happiness.

Imagine if Plato's utopia came true. Wouldn't the world have been a better place? Think about it, we would have had no wars, no clashes of Religion, no discrimination.

It would have been Heaven on Earth.

But consider this, if there was a Utopia. There would be no Cell phones, no Television sets, no Airplanes, no Trains, and Definitely no Steam Engine.

You can't be happy AND driven, let me rephrase that, you can be Happy and Content and be driven. The need to excel comes from some sense of lack of achievement or to be BETTER than others, which is a direct result of the Unsatisfaction in one's life. So technically speaking, once one reaches their goal, that is, there is no NEED or a survival instinct to KEEP working harder.

And Considering we are now in a capitalistic world where work being done is solely for the purpose of being able to Afford doing something else, the moment we reach satisfaction we've hit the wall.

If we were satisfied with what we had, we wouldn't have had fire. So now we are at a crossroads where the separation of satisfaction and Happiness is going to a very important tool. And will need addressing. The end of satisfaction is the End for the need to create and improve, there is no reason to fix something that isn't broken. And not being happy and being miserable isn't really the right approach either. What we are looking for is being Happy while simultaneously being unsatisfied with the levels of achievement and Pushing forward to do things, not yet done.

This is probably the reason Tenured professors generally have a lesser work output, now this shouldn't be taken as an argument AGAINST tenure. What i'm saying is that the "promise" on a end is itself the carrot that drives the young and eager to create something that will shake the world. (e.g. John Nash) So in terms of that, tenure is a great Reward.

The sooner we realise that Happiness doesn't start "after" an event, or when this happens or that happens. But instead that the moment is Right here and right now, its a drastic change of perspective. Satisfaction however is a different thing, those we can set personal milestones. And the being unsatisfied is a MUCH better option than being unhappy.