Alex stood in the corner office, the city lights twinkling below like a carpet of fallen stars. This was it. The promotion, the view, the title, the culmination of a decade of relentless striving. She had chased this moment through late nights, sacrificed weekends, and poured every ounce of her energy into climbing this specific ladder. She had arrived. So why did the feeling washing over her feel less like triumph and more like a quiet, unsettling emptiness? This phenomenon, a hollow feeling upon reaching a long-sought goal, is so common it has a name: the "arrival fallacy". It's the mistaken belief that once we acquire a certain status, possession, or achievement, we will finally land in a state of lasting happiness. Yet, as Alex was discovering, the finish line is often just the start of a new, equally demanding race.