#546 The Postponement Problem: Breaking the Habit of Later
Happiness Podcast
Dr. Robert Puff, Ph.D.
4.4 • 920 Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2025
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Postponement Problem: Breaking the Habit of Later
Many of us live our lives waiting for a future happiness that we believe lies just over the horizon. But this mindset creates an indefinite postponement of life, turning the vibrant present into a mere waiting room for a tomorrow that never arrives as planned. Our journey today is to explore how we can break this cycle and learn to live in the only moment we truly have: the now.
New Happiness Podcast episode with Dr. Robert Puff, Newport Beach Psychologist
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. There's a severe melody that a lot of people |
| 0:13.7 | struggle with these days, but it isn't talked about very much, unfortunately. If I were to label |
| 0:19.4 | this condition, I call it the arrival fallacy. |
| 0:23.6 | And here's the core symptom. Most people live by the logic that, when I arrive at X and |
| 0:30.4 | finally get there, then I'll be relaxed, happy, and fulfilled. We see it all the time. It feels like it's omnipresent. When I graduate from high |
| 0:41.5 | school, when I graduate from college, when I graduate from medical school, then my life will |
| 0:47.1 | really begin. When I get that promotion, when the kids are grown, when I retire, then I'll arrive. Let's pause for a second and think about our |
| 0:59.8 | own lives. Is there something we're waiting for in order to finally arrive and be happy? |
| 1:07.8 | When I get through this medical crisis and my body's feeling better, then I'll be happy. |
| 1:13.8 | When I finally find my soulmate, go down that aisle and we commit to live happily ever after, |
| 1:20.6 | no matter what, then my life will begin. For many of us, this makes complete sense. Our goals, our things that we're working towards, |
| 1:29.9 | will bring about a greater amount of happiness. After all, when we make more money, won't we be |
| 1:35.8 | happier? When we finally retire and don't have to go to work anymore and sit in traffic for |
| 1:41.5 | hours, when our lives finally begin? |
| 1:50.3 | I call all these thoughts arrival fallacies, because it's based on the mistaken belief that a future destination holds the key to our present contentment. |
| 1:55.6 | The wisdom of this fallacy goes way back. |
| 1:59.4 | For example, there was a Roman philosopher called Seneca, and in his |
| 2:03.7 | essay called On the Shortness of Life, he powerfully argued that most people don't live, but are |
| 2:11.4 | merely preparing to live, constantly deferring their peace and happiness and enjoyment |
| 2:17.3 | until a future that is not guaranteed. |
| 2:20.3 | We haven't changed much, have we? |
| 2:23.3 | But why are we throughout human history so susceptible to this? |
... |
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