Mmm, am I the only one not thinking right, or does the article debunk its own suggestion?

Their conclusion was that those who experienced mild depressive symptoms could, indeed, disengage more easily from unreachable goals. That supports Dr Nesse’s hypothesis. But the new study also found a remarkable corollary: those women who could disengage from the unattainable proved less likely to suffer more serious depression in the long run.

I'm not sure how they define "mild depressive symptoms", but it looks like depression in the sense of the word I expect--the serious illness that is among the top 10 causes of disability worldwide--is not necessarily linked to the mechanism of low mood => give up unattainable goals. The article also suggests that this giving up motivation is adaptive because it allows one to focus on new goals--or at least to rationally appraise the situation and see if you want to keep going or if there's a better alternative.

Additionally, in what looks to me suspiciously like an example of bad science reporting, the article devotes a considerable part of itself to this:

The importance of giving up inappropriate goals has already been demonstrated by Dr Wrosch. Two years ago he and his colleagues published a study in which they showed that those teenagers who were better at doing so had a lower concentration of C-reactive protein, a substance made in response to inflammation and associated with an elevated risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dr Wrosch thus concludes that it is healthy to give up overly ambitious goals. Persistence, though necessary for success and considered a virtue by many, can also have a negative impact on health.

Okay, first, no mention of how they measured ability to give up "inappropriate goals". That seems methodologically difficult to me. Second, they used a proxy measure (C-reactive protein) for total health, which puts one more link in the cause-effect chain to potentially be a weak link. Third, correlation does not prove causation, even if it seems plausible. Fourth, higher concentrations of C-reactive protein do not equal overall health, so a lot more study would have to be done to tell whether the measured variable has an overall effect on health or not, so the conclusion seems premature.

So I can see why you might discount the article's main argument that the low mood => give up goal mechanism is adaptive even today, but why not accept its challenge? Perhaps your persistence in pursuing the task of heightened motivation is maladaptive--putting yourself at greater risk for psychological problems as you continually fail yourself, taking up more energy than is worthwhile, and keeping you from noticing other opportunities that work more in harmony with your abilities rather than against. I don't see that there's anything in this line of speculation to point in one direction or another--and I do know from experience that if you're working on working on your goals, you're not working.