Absorbed in himself, he continued: “I’ve often thought that if I hadn’t got what I wanted things might have been different with me. I might have found something in my mind and enjoyed putting it in circulation. I might have been content with the work of it, and had some sweet vanity out of the success. I suppose that at one time I could have had anything I wanted, within reason, but that was the only thing I ever wanted with any fervor. God! And that taught me you can’t have anything, you can’t have anything at all. Because desire just cheats you. It’s like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it–but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else, and you’ve got the inconsequential part, but the glitter that made you want it is gone–”

From “The Beautiful and Damned,” F. Scott Fitzgerald

I just read this work again. Perhaps it is Fitzgerald’s most remarkable novel, depicting the high-class youth in New York at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Outstanding prose with stunning power of the words. In this snippet, the author addresses the futility of a granted wish: “Desire just cheats you. It’s like a sunbeam skipping here and there about a room. It stops and gilds some inconsequential object, and we poor fools try to grasp it–but when we do the sunbeam moves on to something else.” You spend your life seeking a goal, and once you succeed, you wonder why you spend all those efforts for such a target. If you are lucky, the achievement will open a new horizon. Otherwise, you might feel empty-handed.