Why You Can’t Enjoy Anything Without Thinking About What’s Next

There’s a version of you from a few years ago who would have done anything to be where you are right now. The apartment, the relationship, the job, the city, whatever it is. And somehow you’re still laying in bed at 1 a.m. wondering if you should blow it all up and start over. 

On Don’t Think, host Carla Bezanson gets into why that restless feeling never actually goes away and what to do when your brain won’t let you just be here. Whether you’re always planning your next move, romanticizing a different life, or mentally ruining good moments while they’re still happening, her advice hits hard. 

You’re not on your way somewhere better. You’re already somewhere.

“The truth is, I don’t think there is some version of life that you can accomplish where you finally won’t want anything else,” Bezanson says. “So the goal isn’t to find this version of your life where you don’t want anything else. I think the goal is to stop believing that that exists.”

She compares it to refusing to enjoy a flight because you’re too focused on the destination. Then you land and immediately start planning the next trip. “One day you’re going to end up somewhere and be like, yeah, this is great, but actually there was nothing wrong with any of the previous destinations or even the plane rides along the way.”

A few signs you might be stuck in that cycle:

• You hit a milestone and the feeling disappears almost immediately
• You’re already chasing the next thing before you’ve even processed the current thing
• You look at someone else’s life and assume theirs comes with fewer problems or tradeoffs
• You keep telling yourself, “Once I finally _____, then I’ll feel _____”

The grass isn’t greener. It’s just different grass with different problems.

Bezanson left corporate thinking freedom would fix everything. Now she watches people clock out at five and feels envious. “Flexibility to choose when I want to work my 75 hours a week. No days off,” she says. Same energy with relationships. When you’re single, you want companionship. When you’re in a relationship, you want space.

“Every option has a tradeoff. And I think that’s the part that we tend to forget,” she says. “We don’t want tradeoffs. We want the perfect option.” But the perfect option doesn’t exist and never has. The people who seem content aren’t the ones who found it. They’re the ones who stopped looking.

A previous version of you would be so mad at you right now

“There’s a previous version of you who desperately just wanted what you have now,” Bezanson says. “And by not even enjoying what you have now, you’re basically saying, ‘F*ck you,’ to that old version of yourself.” 

Next time that restless feeling creeps in, pull up your camera roll from two or three years ago. Look at where you were living, who you were with, what you were stressing about. Chances are you were manifesting the exact life you’re currently taking for granted. That version of you deserves better than you sleepwalking through everything they wished for.

Four words that work as a pattern interrupt

“Life is meant to be enjoyed.” Bezanson uses this phrase like a reset button whenever her brain starts spiraling. Some examples of when to deploy it:

• You’re out to dinner agonizing over whether pasta will ruin your summer body goals → life is meant to be enjoyed
• You’re with friends but mentally running through tomorrow’s to-do list → life is meant to be enjoyed
• You’re on vacation but can’t stop working → life is meant to be enjoyed
• You’re having a genuinely good moment but waiting for something to go wrong → life is meant to be enjoyed

“Not just optimized, not improved, not figured out, but just enjoyed,” she says. “And it’s just that simple. It’s not that simple. It’s actually really f*cking hard.”

The one question worth asking when the spiral starts

When that familiar pull of “something is off” hits but you can’t actually name what it is, Bezanson says to ask yourself one thing: is there anything actively wrong right now? Not hypothetically, not tomorrow, not last week—right this second. “A lot of the time the answer is going to be no,” she says. “The only thing that’s really wrong is that we’re thinking about something better or we’re disrupting our own peace in our own minds.” And if the answer is genuinely no? That’s your cue to stop kicking and just float for a minute.

Listen to the full episode on Don’t Think with Carla Bezanson, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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