1. The odds are stacked against you.
2. Self-evaluation is difficult.

To clarify this (and I am quite tired, so):

1. There’s very little incentive for anyone who has the money and resources to influence your behaviour to help you genuinely improve your life. Most companies rely on perpetuating needs, sugar is a cheap, addictive ingredient, and content people don’t tend to buy as much. Massive effort by marketing and advertising is put into making people discontented and unhealthy – not because anyone’s evil, just because of how capitalism forces businesses to evolve.

2. Sitting down to have a serious look at your own life isn’t something most people are comfortable with. Now, it’s easier than ever to avoid it – you’re never alone with a phone, and Flappy/Angry Birds is much more fun than coldly evaluating where your life might be going wrong.

I’m not sure why people sometimes feel guilty about success – but I think that’s why it’s so easy to backslide. Everything is designed to make it easy for you to backslide.

A theme in my life has centered around the fascination about why people 1) know exactly what to do to become happier or to achieve a certain goal and 2) blatantly ignore the knowledge they have, and continue to complain about their current state of affairs. This aspect of psychology – sabotaging our success; not feeling worthy of the end result – is incredibly interesting. Many times it’s not as simple as “Just do it.” The person will do it for a month or two, and then snap back like that rubber band I talked about it. It’s such a mystery to me.