Everyone wants to be happier. But no one thinks to ask how to be happier. We assume we know what we need to be doing.
After all we’ve seen the movies. We watch the Academy Awards. We’ve see the smiling faces of our almost certainly more fulfilled friends on Facebook.
But it’s all a trick. All the things we’ve been conditioned to think will finally teach us how to be happier are total bullshit. Take, for example . . .
Prestige (aka the esteem of others)
Ah, prestige. The desire to feel important.
It is a fundamental driver of nearly all human action.
But it does not satisfy.
Not in itself at least. That longing to be important is totally dependent on the opinion of others. And as long as your well-being hangs on the whim of someone’s opinion, you’ll never be secure. You’ll need constant reassurance of your status. Because your self-worth doesn’t come from things you control—your actions—but from the uncontrollable perceptions others have of them.
Prestige, fame, status, whatever you call it – it’s fools gold. It’s the reason celebrities blow their heads off. Placing something as precious as your self concept in the hands of others is suicide.
It doesn’t matter if some employer isn’t impressed by the college you attended, or some dinner party guest has never heard of your company. It doesn’t matter if someone omits the “Doctor” in your name. Prestige doesn’t fucking matter. Let others ignore your importance because . . .
Feeling superior to anyone is a destructive pleasure
Say you walk into a room. You size every person up and know you are more capable and more successful. You make more money. You’re more eloquent. People prefer your company to theirs. Simply being in their presence makes you feel smart, sophisticated, and rich. You walk out feeling like a million bucks.
Awesome. Have you reached your goals? Are you living the life you want? Or are you the same exact half-baked person you were when you entered the room, getting high because you look over your shoulder and think you see slower runners in the big race of life?
Well, life isn’t a competition. Every man runs his own race. Alone. You can’t beat anyone else cause you’re not running on the same track and you don’t have the same finish line.
Let other people live their lives. Be happy for their successes in the way you would if you had everything you needed in the world. Their success takes nothing from yours. The guy who needs to knock others is the guy who isn’t impressed with himself. The only person you need to be better than is you, yesterday.
Money beyond the cost of food, rent, and basic upkeep is a trap
There is a pervasive, ludicrous belief that once you’ve accumulated enough money, you’ll be free to do the things you really want. That amount of money is usually just a few multiples away (when I have a million in the bank). And it stays a few multiples away forever (when I have 5 million, 10 million . . .).
Here’s the deal: if you don’t set an absolute exit date within the next 2 years, the probability you ever leave the rat race drops to just a shade over zero. It doesn’t matter how much you make.
More money in not the answer. More money is the problem. Because money can’t buy freedom. It can only distract you from the truth: you have the freedom you allow yourself to have. Like Achilles says:
And one more thing – the money you’ll exchange for your life won’t satisfy. Yes, a baseline level is necessary for survival nd certainty. But the upper limit of money contributing to day-to-day happiness is about $75,000. This is well-documented.
So say you quit your job. You chase your dream. You do what makes you happy.
Congrats! But, I’m sorry to say it won’t all be roses. Because the hate-brigade is coming . . .
If you try to be liked by everyone, you’ll never do what you love
Here’s the deal: people all across the world hate you. Right now. They hate you for your nationality, for your race, for your profession, for your religious beliefs or lack thereof, for your politics, for EVERYTHING.
You just don’t know it because you are insulated by your obscurity.
But as soon as you do anything worth noticing, they will rear their heads. And guess what? Doing what you love–and doing it well–is worth noticing.
Not only will the haters refuse to recognize your greatness, some will actively try to drag you down. They’ll shit on what you do and what you create. They’ll call you stupid, immoral or just plain ridiculous. Out of insecurity, out of principle, or if they are close to you, out of a desire for you to stay the same.
You don’t need their blessing to live your life. March on.
That’s all for now folks,
Charlie
P.S. Think I left something out? Leave it in the comments. Maybe we’ll get a round 2 of destructive pursuits going.
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13 thoughts on “How To Be Happier: End These 4 Life-Sucking, Unconscious Pursuits”
Good post Chuck!
I currently really want to put an effort on needing less prestige or significance in my life in order to feel happier.
I was initially thinking that I should learn strategies to decrease my dependency on this basic human need, for the reasons you wrote – ” self-worth doesn’t come from things you control—your actions—but from the uncontrollable perceptions others have of them…”
However, I have recently changed from seeking a strategy to remove my desires for validation , to relocating the source of my validation. Getting my prestige and significance from myself and/or things that I CAN control.
What are your thoughts on the change of thinking do you know a good way to do this?
Much Love
I think you nailed it man.
The need for significance is a tough one to squelch. I definitely try, but it crops its head up. You want to be better than the last guy the girl dated, cooler than the other people at the party, more successful than your competition. That shit is a trap for sure. I think you’re right to get significance from stuff you can control (I helped that person, I’m growing, I am proud of the way I behaved).
I think prestige is just a total trap. Because prestige is always tied to the opinion of others. I think you should definitely take pride in your accomplishments – just not because other people think they are impressive.
I completely agree. I’ve spent too much time and energy on social medias, trying to make other people interact with me more so I can actually believe that I’m a great person, but this is nonsense. It’s too dangerous and pointless to expect validation from others all the time.
I am really trying to cut off my bad habits and stop browsing social medias so much, and I want to accomplish things for myself, without feeling the need to tell everybody.
I quit smoking and started running every day since last month, I haven’t told anybody yet except my close friends. It feels good to be humble, and more importantly to do things for myself.
That’s fantastic Remi!
You’re totally right about social media. It is incredibly easy to get sucked into the validation of likes and comments, sometimes from people you hardly know. It feels good for a minute, but turns off as soon as the external validation stops pouring in.
Thank you.
You’re very welcome
Thanks for this post Charlie. These are thought-provoking points. For the longest, I was driven by my need for prestige. What school I attended and job I got were almost solely influenced by how good it looked on paper and sounded to others. I achieved a lot of these superficial goals only to be, ironically, worse off than if I hadn’t because I incurred more debt (school) or ended up quitting a job and racking my brain about what to do next. Years later I’m learning to tap into my desires to really find what makes me tick.
Really like Remi’s points about social media attention…
Great point about money. Our relationship to money is similar to our relationship with our goals. Once we get there, we want more. Like the J. Cole song… Can’t Get Enough. Here’s a good NYT piece that I just stumbled on that talks about our instinct to accumulate more than we can ever spend http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/you-cant-take-it-with-you-but-you-still-want-more.html?_r=0
I think the hardest thing is to have the discipline in the years leading up to the “2 year exit date” to save enough to really follow through with our escape plans.
Thanks for the article! I’ll definitely check it out.
I will say man, the amount you need to save for the escape plan in smaller than you think. I did it with approx 25K in the bank and 100K in student loan debt (draining 1K/monthly payments). But that was enough runway to get KA going.
And honestly, even if it wasn’t, so what? I’d have to go back and get a shitty, underpaid corporate gig. And then try again in 2 more years.
I guess my mentality is that I want my life to be ridiculously awesome. And I’m willing to try and fail 100 times if necessary. There is nothing so wonderful (to me, at least) about the “stability” of a steady paycheck. I’m not gonna starve to death either way, so why not shoot for the stars even with low fuel? Worst that happens is I crash to the same Earth I launched from.
Love it all. Think realizing you’re not superior also allows you to learn from others because you know you don’t know it all.
Another trap I’ve noticed in my life and moreso in others is being content with crap. It’s one thing to be confident and compassionate, it’s another to have a false sense of contentment when deep down you’re not genuinely happy. Contentment is a fine line that you need to constantly walk on to drive growth and sustainable happiness.
This made it to reddit, if the author or others would like to see what more people think: http://www.reddit.com/r/DecidingToBeBetter/comments/1y2ao4/4_things_most_people_doggedly_pursue_that_are/
Personally, I think these rules are too rigid to fit more than a small portion of the population. Money CAN buy freedom. Money gives you the freedom to make more choices. The thing is, if you just blindly pursue money, you’re neglecting all the choices you’ve been given and you lose freedom, in a sense. But I think it’s quite ignorant to claim that everyone can be happy with enough money just to satisfy food and rent. Is your dream to reach the moon? Good luck getting there with just your food and house!
Thanks for sharing!
I took a look at the comments and realized I have not been clear in what I meant. The truth is, I agree with you. I’m not advocating a ascetic lifestyle. I should have been clearer with what I meant by “basic upkeep”
I wrote this while living in NYC. I had friends who, at 24 years old, were making a quarter million dollars a year. They were murdering themselves at work. And they had plans to keep it up for another 15 years.
The amount I’m referring to is far less than that 250K, but still far above the poverty line. It’s middle class: 75K in a bigger city. Beyond that, the law of diminishing returns hits hard.
Very enlightening Charlie! I am fixated on becoming a physician and don’t know why. It started over 10 years ago and I am just now starting to take my pre-med classes due to outside factors. I’m thinking I just want the prestige that you mention.I dont really care about the $. I never did. But as you mention it only takes $75k to live a decent life, I am going to re-think this whole thing.
Wow. That’s awesome. Not that you’re *not* going to become a physician, but that you’re going to think through it with a different criteria. A lot of people want to be doctors or lawyers or bankers to make a lot of money. Nothing wrong with any of those professions. But when you’re doing it primarily for the big payday – you’re going to feel a hole. Hope you do something that lights you up!
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