I'm reading through the happiness trap, and I'm reading conflicting messages which I don't quite know how to make sense of.

Ultimately, I think it's just about having a balance of both mindfulness and hooking, but ultimately he says that it's about pursuing values, and that it's okay to be hooked if it serves as a towards move, or if we find it useful. From the book:

Now obviously there are times when being absorbed in our thoughts is useful and life-enhancing; for example, if we’re dreaming up ideas for a creative project, mentally rehearsing a speech, planning an important event, or simply solving a crossword puzzle. When we’re absorbed in thoughts in useful, life-enhancing ways that help us move toward the life we want, the term hooked (or fused) wouldn’t apply. We only use the term hooked when we’re caught up in our thoughts in ways that take us away from the life we want.

but then he also says:

the more absorbed in your thoughts, the less engaged in the activity.

How do you go about this?

I guess my issue is that it becomes a cycle for me. What happens is that I discover ACT after a period of depression, I then hook onto something I do find genuinely useful, in the process I then forget about ACT entirely, and then when I'm no longer interested/find value the thing I hooked on, I feel entirely lost and the cycle repeats itself.

The question I guess is how does one go about balancing the hooking of useful things vs the unhooking of useless things, if everything you think you're hooking to is useful? How do you go about maintaining ACT?

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