When I ask my friends how things are going and they’re doing well, they get shy. Most people can tolerate only a moderate dose of happiness before they begin to self-regulate. They grow suspicious of their own good fortune like they’ve stumbled upon a vault left open by mistake. They act like joy is a smuggled gem.
The problem with striving is that it makes people unnerved by fortune that arrives without commensurate suffering. We want the narrative arc and the montage of character-building setbacks. Sudden luck insults the myth of meritocracy.
Chances are, you care way too much about what you deserve and not enough about what you want. What’s so threatening about luck is not the fact of it, but the upward spiral that follows. When nothing is wrong, there’s no story to tell, no problem to solve. You’re left realizing that no one is coming to interrupt it. Most people will invent a disturbance just to feel grounded again because the paralysis of happiness is just too much. Most stress is…