You want to be happy? Do not stop!

What for you is an indication of a well-lived life? High salary and a prestigious job, a family, a nice home and clothes, professionalism, self-development? The truth is somewhere in the middle. Everything that is not the ultimate goal, but in the search for oneself and one's place. Neuroscientists have proved that only strive for more, a person can be happy.

Imagine a man with a wonderful resume LinkedInWhich is impressive job title, and a bunch of accolades. Often at personal meeting formal beauty of these achievements is rapidly disappearing. Regardless of how successful his career, you can see something depressing, almost lifeless in a man who effortlessly moves up the career ladder in a law firm. Incredibly sad to be well-paid professionals whose sole purpose in life - to get a table at a fancy restaurant.

Regardless of whether we seek a new job, Reach a new level in the relationship, or to work on themselves, we should always want something more, to feel good.

Neuroscientists agree: The key to life satisfaction is not in order, we achieve, and the search process itself.

Neuroscientist Jaak Panskep (Jaak Panskepp) says that of the seven basic instincts (anger, fear, panic / mountain, maternal care, the joy / lust, play and search) is to find the most important. All mammals have a search system in which dopamine - a neurotransmitter associated with reward and pleasure - is involved in the coordination of planning activities. This means that animals are rewarded for the study of the environment and the search for new information, necessary for survival.

In the book "Emotional neurosciences" Panskep describes an experiment. The rats have access to the lever, pressing the current which strikes them. And they repeatedly click on the lever, each time receiving a strong discharge. They do not experience pleasure at that. Panskep says that working on such stimulation, the rats look very excited, even crazy. They are motivated not getting any honorsAnd the need to find yourself.

The human desire for constant research helps explain why the achievement of the main goals or winning the lottery does not lead to long-term changes in happiness. Our desire to move forward should not be the cause of eternal dissatisfaction.

Search itself is a full-fledged business.

Evan Thompson (Evan Thompson), a professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia, said that the entire area of ​​philosophy can be seen as an expression of this impulse constant search. Rather than just come up with an answer to a philosophical question, and go to bed, satisfied with them, many philosophers see an end in itself in the search process. The same is true for science, and art.

If you are an artist, there are always new ways of expressing new things you need to create and communicate. The world is not static, it is constantly changing, so we have to do again in the light of these changes. Also, any good scientist does not believe that one day the science will come to an end. Science - it questions, a new way of looking at things, the new devices. It is not limited, and it may not be final.

The presence of the innate human desire to look for means that we can never truly fulfill all our desires. It will never end lists, future goals and plans, what we want to achieve and see. But this is what makes our life happier.