I read an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review (June 2010) about Uzma Khan’s research at Stanford’s business school showing that the more people want something, the less they’ll like it.  The paper outlines a couple of experiments they performed and observed that the more people were willing to pay for a prize, the more likely they were willing to trade it away.

I’m not entirely convinced of the causality of the two events but I can believe that wanting doesn’t necessarily translate to liking.  Think about the clichés of girls chasing after the bad-boy or wanting to go to a restaurant with a long line up.  Many times the chase and anticipation is more satisfying than the goal.

Something to think about: which things are we chasing because we like and which are we just chasing?