Arrival Fallacies

I recently attended An Unfunny Evening with Tim Minchin and His Piano in San Francisco. During the (excellent) show, he spoke some about the arrival fallacy:

I've been aware of the concept for some time, but hadn't heard of a proper term for it. I've been thinking about how it applies in my life. I think it's largely an obstacle to me being present in the moment, causing me to focus my attention instead on the pursuit of some goal. I'll list some past and current goals that qualify as arrival fallacies for me, then analyze the extent to which "arriving" lived up to my expectation.

Past

• First job post-graduation
• Marriage
• Paying off student loans
• Coming out to my spouse as polyamorous in my romantic orientation

Current

• Paying off divorce-related debts
• Returning to work (I'm on a multi-week leave)
• Cohabiting with a romantic partner

Reaching some of the past goals did produce enduring benefits for me. For whatever reason, debt generally stresses me out- so completing my last debt via paying off my student loan felt great at the time, and has provided enduring peace where before (and otherwise) there'd be a low level of anxiety. Similarly, my worst mental health occurred when I was poor and underemployed (and for a period, unhoused) in the nine months after graduation. Being fully and adequately employed since landing my first full-time job in California, brought me great relief on day 1 and has continued to provide peace and reassurance and belonging in the thousands of days since.

Marriage was also significant: I experienced a big psychological boost from the social reinforcement of that move, and I felt more security and belonging in my relationship with my partner at the time. Similarly, disclosing to my wife that I identify as polyamorous in my romantic orientation felt massively relieving (compared to the preceding two years of closet life) and the changes that disclosure led to continue to pay substantial dividends in my life. 

Other smaller milestones, however, have been more mixed: for example, taking several weeks off work. I was distracted for a year or two by this belief that I wanted/needed substantial time off work, and was spending too many months and years in a lifestyle where most of my spoons were spent on work, at an intolerably high opportunity cost.  The time off hasn't been as awesome as I'd envisioned. However, arriving at that time off has helped me put to bed the angst associated with that belief, since I now have data instead of speculation, about what several weeks off would feel like. 

On reflection:

1. I've been unsuccessful at going for any substantial period of time without 1-2 arrival fallacies guiding my energy investments
2. My goals are less fallacious than I thought: many of them provided substantial short and long-term happiness (largely by reducing what were otherwise, enduring rivers of anxiety and worry)
3. I could practice striving and arrival fallacy-ing less. However, leaning in to them and achieving them faster, such that I replace belief with experience, is also a decent strategy: at least as long as goal selection is tempered with pragmatism (targeting Olympic gold in swimming, for instance, is infeasible and would be far too opportunity costly to be worth pursuing)

Conclusion

I'm not sure how to live without these medium-term horizon goals, and I find they do help me marshal energy and achieve generally worthy things that matter to me personally: so interestingly, I plan to keep it up, coupled with critically questioning myself every so often on my cost/benefit beliefs, e.g. that a given milestone will pay off as much as I believe it will.

My inner voice that identifies what matters to me is perhaps not as misled by the arrival fallacy as I thought it would be when the analysis wheels starting turning at Tim Minchin's show.