2-45: The Arrival Fallacy

Are We There Yet?

Almost without fail, each time I open social media, I come across a video of Olympic gold medalist Alysa Liu. Usually it is her celebratory performance, playful and elegant. Other times it is a short interview, where the same ease somehow remains. When asked if she was nervous to perform at the Olympics, she said no. She was at peace because she had already achieved her goal of making it to the Olympics. Even if she finished last, it would still be a success. I admire that kind of optimism, and more than that, her refusal to move the goalpost after already arriving somewhere she once dreamed of reaching.

So much of our anxiety comes from arriving somewhere meaningful, then refusing to call it arrival. We reach what once felt distant and meaningful, then immediately reset our sights on the next label, the next rung, the next milestone. You start dating someone and try to be patient while waiting for the boyfriend or girlfriend label. Then you want engagement, then marriage. Work follows the same pattern: you want the promotion, then the next one, then the one after that, while the satisfaction from the last step fades even faster than it arrived.

I like to think of each stage in life as coming with its own pair of glasses. Those glasses represent the goals and lines in the sand you held at that stage. At each new milestone, dig through your old shoe boxes and pull out the glasses you wore when you got home from your first date, or when you stepped into your office for the first time. The butterflies have left your stomach and your laptop battery is drained, yet your sense that you are in the right place, with the right people, doing the right things, has never felt more true. You may fantasize about standing on the altar or being named in the latest partner class, but in that moment you are thoroughly enjoying the journey.

Then days, weeks, and months pass, and more of your mental energy gets spent living in the future. You daydream about where you will go as a married couple or what life will feel like once you finally make partner. Then you get there and realize “there” has already been replaced. Once you make partner, you realize there are tiers, and you are back at the bottom of yet another ladder.

Putting on your old pair of glasses can reframe your current goals. It can remind you that you are already standing in places your former self once strained to reach. The tragedy is that we forget how badly we once wanted to stand where we stand now.