The Rewired Life: Seeking Better, Not Just More

Seeking is profoundly natural. In fact, it is a drive wired deep into our brains, a crucial part of our evolutionary biology. In many ways, seeking is why we exist today—it is the fuel for growth, discovery, and survival. So, this article is not about stopping that powerful, innate force; it's about channeling it.

Are we seeking the wrong things?

In a world saturated with curated lifestyles, comparison-driven ambition, and endless information, the impulse to achieve more is hardwired into us. Left unchecked, it can run amok—pushing us toward pursuits promising fulfillment but often delivering anxiety instead. Professional wins, luxury goods, validation, and certainty may seem like worthy goals, yet they can quietly erode our well-being.

Economic and financial educators appreciate an essential behavior underlying financial success:

Live Below Your Means.

This behavior has an interesting paradox. The habit of getting rich reinforces the behavior of not looking rich, such as driving an older car, attending low-cost colleges, eating in, and going on inexpensive but soul-reviving stacations. Then, when they get rich, though they could spend more, they do not, because it feels weird and out of character. Strangely, people who look rich often are not, and the ones who do not look rich often are!

The supreme challenge: living below our means is weirdly difficult. Everything from our neurobiology and culture screams to seek more and get ahead. The "scarcity-brain" of high cultural expectations encourages us to spend to catch up, instead of saving to build wealth. Those nature and nurture influences make living below your means very difficult. As such, we cannot just hope to live below our means -- it does not happen by accident. We need active strategies to accomplish living below our means.

This article introduces a behavioral framework for living below our means by identifying what not to seek. Grounded in neuroscience, Stoicism, world religions, and decision science, it offers a counterintuitive truth: long-term happiness often begins with subtraction. Inspired by Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s idea of via negativa—knowing what to avoid is more powerful than knowing what to add—we identify five common but misleading paths people follow in the name of success or happiness.

"Good" seeking often has an emergent quality. It takes time and care to develop our "good" seeking habits and behaviors. But "bad" seeking is often all about now. If we fill up our life bucket with "bad" seeking today, it crowds out the future emergence of "good" seeking. This article's framework creates space to explore joy by using five “NOT” categories as a guide for refining your happiness goals. The idea is, when we avoid what NOT to seek, what remains is an opportunity to seek.

About the author: Jeff Hulett leads Personal Finance Reimagined, a decision-making and financial education platform. He teaches personal finance at James Madison University and provides personal finance seminars. Check out his book -- Making Choices, Making Money: Your Guide to Making Confident Financial Decisions.

Jeff is a career banker, data scientist, behavioral economist, and choice architect. Jeff has held banking and consulting leadership roles at Wells Fargo, Citibank, KPMG, and IBM.

Each “NOT” represents a trait, when left unchecked, can distort our decision-making, drain our energy, and delay our growth. By avoiding these patterns, we free up space for more authentic, purpose-driven living. The "NOT" categories are considered bounds to avoid. What remains is available for our healthy decision-making

Proposing a shift toward activities bringing joy is one thing, but implementing it is a different challenge. The challenge of seeking is directing it and knowing when "enough" has been achieved. Many believe achieving - like earning more money or surpassing work goals, like closing deals or hitting budget targets - boosts happiness. Yet, could the time spent earning or pursuing career milestones be redirected toward activities helping others and leading to greater fulfillment? As discussed in our "Seeking what not to seek" article, the research suggests the answer is “Yes.” However, our instinctual drive to seek often obscures awareness of alternative pursuits better supporting our happiness.

Seeking to Find “Enough”: John Bogle, the late Vanguard founder, shared a story illustrating our struggle with seeking: At a party hosted by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut remarked to Joseph Heller that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more in one day than Heller had earned from his blockbuster book Catch-22 in its entire history. Heller replied, “Yes, but I have something he will never have… enough.”

Determining what truly makes you happy is not straightforward—and research shows why. Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman’s work in psychology and behavioral economics, particularly his joint study with Angus Deaton (2010), found that once a basic income threshold is reached—about $60,000 in 2010 dollars—additional income has little lasting effect on day-to-day emotional well-being. As Kahneman observed, “Money doesn’t buy happiness, but lack of money certainly buys misery.” His research affirms a truth long taught by world religions: income yields diminishing returns to happiness.

This finding challenges our instinct to continually seek more. Beyond the threshold, comparative seeking—driven by our genome’s bias toward social comparison—can trick us into believing we need more income than we actually do. The more others have, the more we feel compelled to match or exceed them, even if it does nothing to improve our happiness.

Rather than endlessly chasing more, a more reliable strategy is to avoid what reliably causes unhappiness and focus your energy on what genuinely sustains it. In practice, that means recognizing when you have “enough” and redirecting your seeking toward pursuits that create meaning, connection, and contribution.

As a great paradox, some people earn well beyond their minimum income threshold by focusing on helping others. Consider money as a form of voting: when you create a product or service offering significant value, people “vote” by choosing to pay for it. In this way, not seeking income for its own sake can ironically lead to an abundance of it.

Now, we will outline each category in the “NOT to seek” framework.

To help you remember, think of seeking “what not to seek” as a way to live well—essentially, to be a “GOOD LIVE-R.” This memory aid highlights five things to avoid seeking:

• [L] - Luxury

• [I] - Ignorance

• [V] - Vanity

• [I] - Immediate Gratification

• [R] - Risk Avoidance

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.” — Seneca

1. Not Seeking Luxury: After working diligently, it’s natural to feel we’ve earned some luxury. Yet linking luxury to hard work can be misleading. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle said, “Work is its own reward.” Similarly, labor economist David Autor observed, “Work is what structures adults' lives: it gives us purpose, focus, a set of responsibilities, and an identity.” This highlights how the intrinsic value of work extends far beyond material rewards. So, why do we chase luxury? It’s often because work enables luxury, and luxury-seeking simply replaces one pursuit (work) with another (consumption). Earnings from work reflect societal value creation, while luxury is how we choose to spend today. With fixed budgets, luxury-seeking often crowds out resources we might otherwise save or use to benefit others. Luxury is thus an inferior substitute for the value we could create by diverting our efforts.

Contentment with what we have fosters happiness. The more we’re satisfied, the more resources—time and money—become available to create value for others and save for the future. This cycle of fulfillment begins by redirecting the very drive making us effective at work. Avoiding luxury is also a form of expectation management; as we acquire more, our desire grows, and unmet desires can undermine happiness. By resisting luxury, we selectively pursue “more” that actually enhances happiness.

A ‘Faux Pro’ Bike Example: I recently spoke with a friend who, like me, enjoys biking, though he rides faster and longer, often joining a group of ten riders every weekend.

He had just bought a new bike for $17,000, which surprised me. Curious, I asked why he chose such an expensive model. He highlighted its quality, lightweight, and smooth ride, noting that many in his group also own high-end bikes. When I asked if he could keep up on his old bike, he admitted he could and that it was not broken; he even kept it as a backup. Given his work as a financial trader, he can easily afford the luxury, but his choice reflects the pull to keep up with the group and ride as if he were on a pro-level. People like him are often called “faux pros”—amateurs who, influenced by industry marketing and FOMO (fear of missing out), buy professional-grade gear and ride as if they are pros.

FOMO is a psychological response to social pressure. It arises when people feel that others are having better experiences or gaining advantages they may miss if they do not follow suit. In this case, FOMO likely fueled the desire to match the group’s status and performance level.

While a less costly bike could meet his exercise and safety needs, his motivations extended to luxury. His bike group became his “Joneses” to keep up with, influenced by a kind of FOMO-driven peer pressure. Assuming he retires in 30 years, the future value of the bike’s price could be nearly $350,000. He is effectively exchanging a faux pro bike for $350,000 that could support him or others in retirement. His choice seems less about utility, like fitness or safety, and more about satisfying the impulse to keep up with peers. Later, we will discuss how appearances often mislead.

The Luxury-Work Dynamic: My friend’s career as a trader, a field that’s competitive and comparison-driven, likely fuels his desire for luxury. The habit of comparing trades and benchmarks translates easily into a “keeping up with the Joneses” mindset. It is challenging to separate work from luxury-seeking, especially when we tend to adopt traits of those around us. So, it is wise to be selective when choosing our influences.

Avoiding luxury also applies the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 rule. Strive for 80% of the value at 20% (or less) of the cost required for the final 20% of the value. The bike example is an extreme case: by not seeking luxury, my friend could achieve nearly all the biking benefits for 1% or less of the long-term opportunity cost.

Understanding your own value is notoriously difficult. In the famous words of Warren Buffett, "Price is what you pay, Value is what you keep." Ensuring your motivations for value align with the price paid is the challenge.

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

 — Mark Twain

2. Not Seeking Ignorance: While people don’t intentionally pursue ignorance, it can easily arise if we aren’t attentive. The phrase “It seemed like a good idea at the time” often signals a choice that, in hindsight, was rooted in ignorance. Ignorance occurs when we either fail to update our beliefs or ignore new information. Habits can be very helpful. Think of a habit as an icon you can mindlessly click to execute a stored set of procedures. Like: "I work out every day." But habits can also become biased if they go uninspected. Like an established habit to "Never Give Up" turns into "Never leaving bad relationships." Habits are like two sides of the same coin. The good thing about habits is the bad thing about habits: they are difficult to change and execute below the level of our consciousness.

Belief updating requires us to adjust our perspectives as new information becomes available. Philip Tetlock, a professor and forecasting expert, notes, “Beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be guarded.”   However, people often resist testing beliefs, especially when new information challenges long-held views.

To avoid ignorance, we should focus our limited attention on matters that genuinely impact our lives. While gossip about political scandals may be entertaining, unless you’re a policymaker, your attention is better directed toward issues where you can make a real difference. Aim to “Think Globally” but guide your attention by opportunities for “Acting Locally.”

A Deadly Example of Ignorance: The January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, where Americans harmed fellow citizens, illustrates the consequences of unchecked misinformation. A congressional report found that:

“The Committee’s investigation has identified many individuals involved in January 6th who were provoked to act by false information about the 2020 election repeatedly reinforced by legacy and social media.” - 117th Congress Second Session House Report

While the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights protect our freedom to express beliefs, these protections have limits when misinformed beliefs lead to tragic outcomes like the Capitol attack.

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less.”

— C.S. Lewis

3. Not Seeking Vanity: Vanity and luxury-seeking are related, as one’s vanity can drive the pursuit of luxury, but they’re not always linked. Luxury is often easier to assess since it has a price tag. With a bike, for example, you can compare costs and ask whether spending more aligns with your values or simply fuels vanity. Vanity, however, is trickier. For some, self-worth is tied to feeling important—to their workplace, friends, or society. But importance is largely a perception within the mind of the seeker. We tend to inflate our own importance compared to how others see us. Most people focus on their own significance rather than noticing or admiring others’ self-importance. Morgan Housel, author of The Psychology of Money, captures this paradox of vanity:

"[P]eople tend to want wealth to signal to others that they should be liked and admired. But in reality, those other people often bypass admiring you, not because they don’t think wealth is admirable, but because they use your wealth as a benchmark for their own desire to be liked and admired."

Housel’s paradox traces back to Adam Smith. Writing in the mid-1700s, Smith observed, “Man not only desires to be loved, but to be lovely.” His point was that vanity is woven into human nature. The paradox shows up even in places we assume are purely selfless, such as charitable giving.

The charitable flavor of the vanity paradox is called "Virtue Signaling." While generosity may be sincere, it often carries an undercurrent of recognition—names etched on plaques, buildings, or donor lists signaling virtue. In those cases, the gift risks shifting from advancing the cause to securing the image of being charitable. Of course, Universities are famous for selling virtue signaling as a benefit, where rooms, entrances, technology, buildings, etc, are "for sale" to donors in exchange for a prominent display of the donor's virtue.

Is virtue signaling bad? Not when it is wrapped in our complex, selfless and selfish motivations. This is incredibly normal for us humans. We should strive to help others and find joy in their company—but without seeking admiration. Demonstrating humility, kindness, and empathy often garners more respect than seeking validation through self-importance. Also, as a professor teaching in James Madison University's College of Business learning complex, thank you to all who gave. I walk by your names all the time!

A recurring theme with vanity and difficult life choices is decision readiness. Choices impacting future growth—like selecting a college or committing to marriage—are challenging because they require envisioning how we’ll thrive in an unknown future. Vanity can cloud our judgment on readiness for such decisions. Listening to your values and consulting people you respect—parents, a mentor, or a trusted community member—can help balance vanity with wise decision-making.

A College Example: Suppose you’re in high school and deciding whether to attend college. Are you ready? You may feel pressure because your “smart” friends are attending prestigious schools, while “losers” choose community college. But that’s vanity speaking! Research shows that peer pressure in college choices often outweighs wise guidance, and it can lead to poor decisions. Questions about study habits and paying fair value for a college education are critical. Community colleges and non-traditional paths can offer substantial value. Related to Housel’s paradox, the risk is that friends may use your college choices as a benchmark to elevate themselves. Vanity here distracts from understanding how college will support your growth.

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.”

 — Benjamin Franklin

4. Not Seeking Immediate Gratification: To achieve "Living Below Our Means" introduced earlier, we should not seek immediate gratification.

Among the most persistent challenges to long-term well-being is the tendency to prioritize immediate comfort over enduring value. Immediate gratification appeals to our evolutionary wiring. When food or shelter was scarce, acting on impulse improved survival. In today’s context, however, the same instinct often leads to poor habits and delayed regret. We eat poorly, overspend, and defer discipline—not because we lack knowledge, but because we respond to availability and emotion rather than intention.

This tendency is amplified in personal finance. Spending delivers a quick dopamine reward, while saving or investing requires abstract thinking and delayed benefit. The brain treats future-focused behaviors like a loss in the present, making them feel emotionally costly even when they are objectively wise.

To address this challenge, effective financial decision-making begins with structure, not willpower. The goal is not to rely on constant restraint, but rather to build a consistent, repeatable process that reduces friction in making the right choice. As a behavioral economist and personal finance professor, I teach learners to embed key practices into their routines—automated savings, scheduled investment reviews, and prioritized self-payments at the beginning of each month.

These practices create a default toward discipline. Just as a thermostat maintains a temperature, automated routines preserve decision quality without requiring continuous deliberation. Saving then becomes a system, not a struggle.

We often use decision-support technology to reinforce this mindset. The tools do not just track budgets; they clarify opportunity costs, visualize trade-offs, and prompt future-oriented reflection. The habit of connecting present actions to long-term outcomes is what ultimately changes behavior.

This is not about asceticism. It is about allocating finite resources—time, attention, money—toward goals that compound meaningfully over time. By resisting the impulse to satisfy every short-term desire, we create space for investments that serve health, freedom, and contribution.

When viewed this way, delayed gratification becomes an act of agency. It signals a commitment to future outcomes and reflects the confidence to trade comfort today for options tomorrow. That is not a restriction. That is empowerment.

"The prospect of getting rich is highly motivating, and few people get rich without taking a gamble."

 — Peter Bernstein (Author of Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk)

5. Not Seeking Risk Avoidance: There is a crucial difference between risk and ruin. Ruin signifies an irreversible loss—like losing one's health, integrity, or financial foundation—and one absolutely must avoid it. However, risk itself is not the adversary. Risks, particularly those that are calculated, reversible, and growth-oriented, remain essential for learning, progress, and happiness.

Human brains possess a hardwired caution. Evolutionarily speaking, risk avoidance once ensured survival. In the present world, however, the instinct can cause one to sidestep opportunities that do not threaten survival but offer substantial long-term upside, particularly in financial investing. The evolutionary wiring must be consciously managed to achieve compound growth.

Avoiding financial risk, such as refraining from investing, will erode long-term wealth through missed compound growth. Growth is achieved through strategic exposure, not total avoidance. The essential lesson for building wealth is to be intentional about the risk one is going to accept, focusing on strategic exposure that is clearly understood and purposefully undertaken.

The primary strategy for managing financial risk involves embracing risk intentionality. The goal is not to avoid risk entirely, but to be highly deliberate about the specific risks one chooses to take. The Investment Barbell Strategy (IBS) illustrates the concept well by segmenting investments into distinct risk profiles.

The IBS considers three critical risk dimensions for managing investment exposure: diversification, volatility, and time. One specific application of the strategy, often termed the “Robo” quadrant in digital wealth management, intentionally seeks exposure to high volatility (a specific, isolated risk) while simultaneously minimizing other risks. Minimization is achieved by increasing diversification via broad Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and adopting long time horizons, such as those associated with retirement savings. The mindset shifts one's perspective from simply taking market chance to deliberately designing one's own odds of success.

That stated, not every person flourishes in high-volatility financial settings. Some find genuine satisfaction in structured, lower-risk financial strategies. If one's current path brings joy and aligns with personal values, there is no need to abandon it. The key is ensuring the choice is conscious, rather than driven by fear of the unknown.

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The framework identifies five categories NOT to seek. But this raises another question: “What about those who do seek some or all of these NOT categories? How should we view them?”—As long as their actions are lawful, we should accept others pursuing these categories. Adam Smith’s concept of the “invisible hand” describes how people’s diverse moral sentiments converge within a community or marketplace. Smith understood that motivations stem from a complex blend of self-interest, including selfishness and altruism. The invisible hand is an emergent phenomenon because individual and societal situations continually evolve.

It’s difficult for an observer to fully understand another’s motivations. So even if someone appears to pursue these NOT categories, we may misinterpret their motivations. For example, in employment, a friend may be happy working in a large, structured organization, even if it’s not appealing to you. Why not ask them how they find joy? Or, in the “faux pro” bike case, my friend’s reasons may go beyond what I can see. Just because I value a $500 bike doesn’t mean his choice lacks meaning. We never have all the information, even though we have a natural desire to judge others based on the information we have.

Embracing diversity strengthens the marketplace, enabling it to function optimally. Ultimately, our judgments cause discomfort. We’re better off valuing differences, following this framework, and withholding judgment. As Southern Baptist minister Billy Graham said:

"... God's job is to judge, and my job is to love."

or as Walt Whitman is often attributed:

"Be curious, not judgemental."

Likewise, we should welcome friends who avoid the NOT categories, surrounding ourselves with people who share positive motivations. However, people’s behaviors shift over time, making it likely they will sometimes pursue a NOT category. Choosing friends who align with these principles is a useful and supportive filter.

My wife and I try to accept our friends as they are, even if their choices diverge from this framework. Our faith emphasizes grace, acceptance, reconciliation, and forgiveness as keys to lasting relationships. We also, albeit imperfectly, measure our own seeking against this framework to guide us in correcting misguided pursuits.

Yet, there are times when releasing a relationship and trusting our faith is the best course. Letting go is never easy. In a world wired for endless seeking, the real breakthrough comes not from chasing more—but from intentionally seeking less. By identifying what not to pursue—luxury, ignorance, vanity, immediate gratification, and risk avoidance—we create room for deeper meaning, stronger relationships, and more deliberate living. This framework is not about judgment or minimalism for its own sake. It is about aligning our natural drive to seek with a clearer sense of purpose. Living well begins with knowing what to let go. When we remove the noise, what remains is opportunity—opportunity to seek what truly matters.

Would you like to learn how to implement this framework?

Seeking and not seeking the road to happiness

Our lives are filled with decisions. Many are practical and aimed at boosting productivity, such as those involving education and career choices. Practical decisions are also essential for maximizing the value of income gained from productivity, like personal finance decisions. Yet, the most vital choices impact our contentment and well-being, such as selecting a life partner or nurturing our curiosity. Along this journey, guides help us avoid going out of bounds. They provide direction on what to steer clear of as we approach life’s significant choices.

The road to happiness

We conclude this article with an invitation. The previous graphic highlights many common in-bounds-seeking decisions across education, career, personal finance, and relationships. Explore the tools and content available through the following link to support you in making these decisions. While each decision varies in specifics, they all follow a shared decision framework. In today’s data-abundant world, maintaining a consistent, repeatable decision-making process is more essential than ever.

Personal Finance Reimagined

Resources for the Curious

These sources informed the concepts and decision frameworks in this article. They span behavioral economics, neuroscience, philosophy, and personal finance:

• Hulett, Jeff. “Seeking What Not to Seek: How to Align Achievement and Happiness.” The Curiosity Vine, 2024.

• Seneca. Letters from a Stoic. Penguin Classics, various editions.

• Housel, Morgan. The Psychology of Money. Harriman House, 2020.

• Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder. Random House, 2012.

• Autor, David. “Why Are There Still So Many Jobs?” Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 29, no. 3, 2015.

• Tetlock, Philip, and Gardner, Dan. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction. Crown, 2015.

• Franklin, Benjamin. Poor Richard’s Almanack, various editions.

• Bernstein, Peter L. Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996.

• Lewis, C.S.. Mere Christianity. HarperOne, 2001.

• Schwartz, Barry. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. Harper Perennial, 2004.

• Prat, Chantel. The Neuroscience of You: How Every Brain Is Different and How to Understand Yours. Dutton, 2022.

• Hulett, Jeff. “Solving the Decision-Making Crisis,” “Our Trade-off Life,” and other essays at The Curiosity Vine (2021–2024).

For more on applying decision science to personal finance and career strategy, explore the Making Choices, Making Money book and the Definitive Choice decision-support app.