Before you start

This is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit, which is carrying a low, steady discontent around and expecting the next big thing to settle it. The next thing changes. For a few years it's a job, then it's a house with one more room, then it's a different town, a different partner, a baby, a promotion, or the day you can stop working altogether. What doesn't change is the shape of the expectation. When I've got that, this feeling will go.

I'm going to argue three things. The first is that the expectation makes sense from the inside, because the relief when the next thing arrives is real. Nobody who has moved into a house they wanted, or started a job they chose, needs telling that the first months feel different. The second is that the research on what happens after big life changes is fairly consistent about what comes next, and it isn't what the expectation promises. On average people react, feel better for a season, and then drift back towards where they were, while the discontent finds something new to attach to. That isn't true of everyone or of every change, and I'll be honest about where it isn't. The third is practical. There's a question you can ask about any next thing that tells you whether it's a fix or a hope, and there's a way of improving the life you've got that doesn't wait for anything to arrive. Chapters 18 to 21 cover how.

This book isn't against changing your life. Some changes fix things, and chapter 2 says which. If your job is making you ill, your home is damp or unsafe, or your partner is unkind to you, those are things to leave, and nothing here is telling you to stay and work on your outlook. This book is about the discontent that has survived two or three next things already, and the one you've got lined up now.

Two cautions.

If the flatness has been there most of the day, most days, for a fortnight or more, and you've lost interest in things you used to enjoy, the NHS says that's a reason to see a GP. Do that before you decide anything about jobs or houses. What's in this book might still be useful afterwards, but it isn't the first step.

And if the next thing in your case is usually something you can order, a coat, a phone, a bag, then the small version of this habit is the subject of an earlier book in this series, You didn't want it yesterday, and that one will fit you better.

The notes at the back give my sources and their limits. Where I'm giving my own reasoning and not a finding, I'll say so.