May 3rd 2011.
External approval concerns lead to more social comparisons, a fantastic way to make yourself miserable by having your status contingent on what others have or do. Focus on extrinsic goals crowds out intrinsic experiences, a study by Bruno Frey and Felix Oberholzer-Gee points out. There’s no room for anything but external results, or what Edward Deci of the University of Rochester calls “instrumental thinking.” Everything has to lead to some external gain. Anything that doesn’t — living, for instance — gets eliminated from the agenda. And you wind up with a nag you could do without, regrets. Researchers have found that what we really regret are the things we don’t do. It’s called the “inaction effect.” The taboo against living your life creates plenty of those.
Read the full story at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-robinson/life-of-no-regrets_b_856092.html
By Joe Robinson