I agree. I think it's because not all of us have very many ways to make ourselves happy so we keep going back to the things that we know will make us feel that way. If you had millions of options that would guarantee to make you happy 100% of the time would you still only choose a small amount of them?
I think that last question you put forth is an interesting one, because I can see an argument for either side. Like if I think of the example of desserts, imagine there were literally a million different ones that we knew 100% of the time would make us happy.Would you try a different dessert every time, or would try maybe a hundred or so and just re-eat them every so often? I could see eating a delicious piece of blueberry pie and wanting to eat it again the next night, but I could also see how by doing so would take away the opportunity to eat another type of dessert. You just can't try them all, try as many as you can once or eat a portion of them multiple times?
And with the first part you said, about how people who struggle to find things that make them happy may go back to the same things that have done the trick in the past, I could also see the flip side of that. I think being unhappy makes one aware that there are a lot of things that make them unhappy, and that in looking for new experiences could just be leading them to the same results.
But I think a person who struggles to be happy, or find things to make them happy, may look
more for new things instead of just going to the old, tried, and true. It's like, imagine you had the means to make one billion dollars every day, you probably wouldn't spend your days looking for ways to make money. If you only had the means to make fifty dollars a day though, while you would spend some time making the money (doing the things you know you like) you may also spend a lot of time looking for new ways to make money (Looking for new things).
I think I'm a person who will sometimes not go out and try new things in the fear that they won't go well. Rather than focus on the prospect of it being a good addition to my life, I'll dwell on all the ways it could make them worse.
I think what I'm sort of getting at is what the expression "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" conveys, in that if you're happy and things are going well, why change things? And on the other side, if things are broken, why would you not try to change things?
