History Main / WantingIsBetterThanHaving

* ''Series/{{You}}'': The end of Season 2 reveals this to be Joe's problem in a big way. [[spoiler:He gets exactly what he wants — a brilliant, beautiful, and even wealthy wife in Love. However, although she really did only do it out of (twisted) love for him, he is both bored and repulsed by her.]]

* ''Fanfic/TwoTwentyOneB'': "Breathed" starts with Holmes grumbling about how no criminal has taken advantage of the fog to do anything interesting. He comes back from a trip to the tobacconist to find one of the crooks he sent to jail on the verge of shooting Watson, and says that he'll never gripe about the fog again.

%%* This is WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'s problem in his movie after he's defeated Metro Man.

* ''Literature/DonQuixote'' and ''Theatre/ManOfLaMancha'' have this, as the titular character perceives it as a common theme for a knight and his lady.
-->"To love... pure and chaste from afar."
** Literature/DonQuixote also show us another hilarious example: All the first part of the novel, Sancho has ridden with Don Quixote [[StandardHeroReward under the promise of a governorship]]. At chapter VII of the second part, Sancho demands a salary for his work. [[GenreSavvy Don Quixote claims that he had never read a Chivalry book where a squire would get a wage and he will never disturb the ancient usage of Knight – Errantry]], so he invokes this trope telling Sancho:
--> ''"And bear in mind, my son, that a good hope is better than a bad holding, and a good grievance better than a bad compensation."''

* This is WesternAnimation/{{Megamind}}'s problem in his movie after he's defeated Metro Man.

* ''Film/JoeDirt'': Much of the film focus is on Joe trying to find his parents who abandoned him. He finally does with the help of the fame he accumulates through the radio talk show he was on, only to find out that they're horrible people and just trying to ride on his fame.

-->-- '''''Literature/{{Hogfather}}'''''

* ''Manga/ShokugekiNoSoma'': The trigger behind Koujirou Shinomiya's FaceHeelTurn. Koujirou was a French-trained Japanese chef, who graduated from the world's most prestigious cooking school at the top of his class, and wanted nothing more than to be the first Japanese chef to win the Bocuse D'Or medal (granted annually by the French government to the chef who has done most to advance French cuisine). He succeeded at age 24. With his life's ambition complete at such a young age, he had nothing to strive for, and lacked the maturity to handle directionlessness.

-->-- '''''Discworld/{{Hogfather}}'''''

* In the ''Literature/{{Franklin}}'' episode "Franklin's Test", Mr. Owl promises his students that he will give them pens if they get a perfect score on their spelling test. Franklin really wants a pen, but has trouble spelling the world "pencil". He writes the word "pencil" on a sticky note, inserts it in his cap, and looks at it during the test. Franklin wins the pen, but when Bear discovers that he had cheated, he throws the pen in the garbage.

* ''Battle Circle'', Creator/PiersAnthony's [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic]] trilogy is made of this trope. No one ever seems to get what they (used to) want, except in the worst possible/least satisfying way. Overused to the point of a BrokenAesop ("Desire only leads to disappointment"), unless you're a Buddhist.

* ''Literature/ThePilgrimsRegress'' by Creator/CSLewis: Subverted; one character gives voice to the sentiment that "It's better to travel hopefully than to arrive," as this trope claims. His companion [[AuthorTract (the one whose views on the question agree with Lewis's own)]] responds that a rational person who really believed that the destination isn't as good as the journey would no longer be hoping to arrive at the destination--and thus, would no longer be "traveling hopefully." The same argument is made in ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce.''

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': The ''Black Friday'' three parter leads to this. The kids are doing some serious LARP-ing inspired by ''Game of Thrones'' (and to a lesser extent, ''Lord of the Rings'' and other fantasies) that escalates into war between the Xbox One and Playstation 4, resulting in double-crossing and dubious affairs from not just them, but several adults. Their escalation leads to ''Sony execs'' and ''Bill Gates'' getting involved, with Gates killing the top Sony exec and declaring Xbox winning, making Cartman's side the victor. While the kids try to enjoy the Xbox One, they're too disturbed by the violence they seen in the name of consumption (''Eric Cartman'' of all people notes Gates' murdering someone is burned into his head). He persuades the kids that they don't the consoles to continue to play, instead choosing a stick. With the reveal the whole arc being the backstory behind ''VideoGame/SouthParkTheStickOfTruth''.

* In the third episode of ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' "Ticket Master", the ponies all look forward to attending the Grand Galloping Gala, thinking it will be the best night ever. In the first season finale "Best Night Ever", they attend the gala only to have their hopes crushed. Their attempts to ''make'' the Gala the best night ever lead to chaos and disaster [[spoiler:which Princess Celestia was hoping would happen since it would liven up the normally dull event]].

** [[spoiler: This is averted when they finally earn their cutie marks in "Crusaders of the Lost Mark." They end up sharing the same special talent, which is helping other ponies discover their true talents. They embrace this wholeheartedly, and decide to continue on being Cutie Mark Crusaders.]]
*** [[spoiler:...And then it's played straight in the season 6 episode "On your Marks." They realize that their "special" talent isn't particularly useful since most ponies don't have Cutie Mark related problems. Scootaloo even questions why they made such a big deal about getting their Marks in the first place. They feel better after they finally find and help one pony with such a problem. Their followup episodes (when together) focus on them dealing with larger questions involving cutie marks. One involves them trying to help a new griffin friend get one (despite griffins not having cutie marks) and another involves them butting heads with a character who is against cutie marks and not wanting to earn his, out of fear that it would be something he does not want to do.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': The''Black Friday'' three parter leads to this. The kids are doing some serious LARP-ing inspired by ''Game of Thrones'' (and to a lesser extent, ''Lord of the Rings'' and other fantasies) that escalates into war between the Xbox One and Playstation 4, resulting in double-crossing and dubious affairs from not just them, but several adults. Their escalation leads to ''Sony execs'' and ''Bill Gates'' getting involved, with Gates killing the top Sony exec and declaring Xbox winning, making Cartman's side the victor. While the kids try to enjoy the Xbox One, they're too disturbed by the violence they seen in the name of consumption (''Eric Cartman'' of all people notes Gates' murdering someone is burned into his head). He persuades the kids that they don't the consoles to continue to play, instead choosing a stick. With the reveal the whole arc being the backstory behind the Stick of Truth video game.

* In ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' Mayuri Kurotsuchi has this view on the concept of perfection. In the aftermath of a duel with an enemy who had repeatedly boasted about his "perfection", Mayuri provides his own perspective on what being perfect means. In Mayuri's perspective being perfect is boring because once you've reached that pinnacle of perfection -- that's it -- there's no where you can go from there. He notes that people have an infatuation with perfection, but how hellish it would be to actually reach that state of existence since you would have no room for improvement, growth, or imagination; that life effectively has no purpose in continuing since you've reached the finish line of life where there is nothing more worth doing. Basically wanting perfection is OK, but having it is not an amiable situation.

* At least a few people mentioned that this happened to ''VideoGame/DukeNukemForever''. Because the game had been in DevelopmentHell for over ten years.
* Likewise with ''VideoGame/MightyNo9''. Many saw it as the second coming of ''{{VideoGame/Mega Man|Classic}}'', especially with Keiji Infune at the helm. But after many delays, especially since it was a Kickstarter funded project, many became irritated with the wait. When it finally did come out three years after its announcement, not only was it a buggy mess on some consoles (specifically the Wii U version), but it didn't play any different from a standard Mega Man game.

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', [[TheCollector a collector]] of Powerpuff Girls merchandise freaks out when he realizes his collection is complete and has nothing else to complete (Well, ''almost'' complete. He ends up going nuts and captures the ''actual'' girls.)
** ''The Powerpuff Girls Rule!'' reveals this was the case for Mojo Jojo: not just beating the girls, but his dream of ruling the world goes this route. [[spoiler: Turns out wanting to make the world a better place isn't as fun as actually doing it, so he messed it all up to bring ''some'' chaos back into his life.]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'', [[TheCollector a collector]] of Powerpuff Girls' merchandise freaks out when he realizes his collection is complete and has nothing else to complete (Well, ''almost'' complete. He ends up going nuts and captures the ''actual'' girls.)

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* ''Film/JoeDirt'': Much of the film focus's on Joe trying to find his parents who abandoned him. He finally does with the help of the fame he accumulates through the radio talk show he was on, only to find out that they're horrible people and just trying to ride on his fame.

In RealLife, this trope is often linked to HypeBacklash.