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Why Humans Always Want More

By Julia Austin

Republish: EasyPublish™
Published: 16Jan2012
Word count: 432
Viewed: 244 time(s)

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If you tell just about any super successful person that they have done so much, they will probably tell you something along the lines of "I haven't done enough." Even if you list off for them all of their life's successes, and you do so with enormous enthusiasm, they will probably keep a calm face the entire time, shaking their head, and when you're done tell you, "but I could do more."

A video I saw recently got me thinking on this topic. The video was about a professional classical singer who, after not singing for a few years, felt a strong urge to improve more and keep going in her career. She had already gained success, but the desire to improve was insuppressible. This re-ignited my interest in the human desire to continue to move forward, invent and improve.

Having a successful person tell you they have not done enough can be hard to hear. You want the person to recognize their success. You want them to feel the satisfaction that they deserve. You'd like to hope that, should you ever reach that level of success, you would be ecstatic. But, something you have to understand about successful people, is that "I haven't done enough" attitude is exactly what got them to be successful in the first place. If they had thought "I've done enough" at their first success, then they would have stopped there.

But where does it come from? This "it's not enough" mentality?

I'm very interested in human evolution and the way the brain works, so I turned to science. I learned that the desire to constantly improve is an evolutionarily developed trait. The desire to succeed was selected for.

Think about it. The cave man that had the drive to find more food, to improve his shelter—he was the one who was most likely to survive to reproduce. And so, he passed on that trait of desiring to improve and succeed, and so did his offspring.

I also learned that people always go back to the same level of happiness. Surely you've heard of people who have won the lottery, and a year later, report not being any happier than they were before winning. That is a prime example of how we are conditioned to always want more. We are only happy if we are working towards something, because that is the trait that was passed down to us—always wanting more.

Julia Austin is a dating columnist who also covers luxury lifestyle and healthy living topics for various publications. Her subject matter ranges from eco-friendly hotels to first date tips and even methods on how to improve one's singing and voice techniques.

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