By lying to ourselves we mortgage our long-term needs

in order to fulfill our short-term desires. Therefore, one

could say personal growth is merely the process of
learning to lie to oneself less.

A SUBTLE LIE WE TELL

OURSELVES:
IF I COULD JUST X, THEN MY
LIFE WOULD BE AMAZING.
Take your pick of what X is: get married, get a raise, buy
a new car, a new house, a new pet rabbit, floss every
Sunday, whatever. Obviously, youre smart enough that
you know that no one single goal will ever solve
your happiness problems permanently. After all, thats
the tricky part about the brain: the If only I had X,
then mechanism never goes away.
Were evolutionarily wired to exist in a state of mild
dissatisfaction. It makes biological sense. Primates who
are never quite satisfied with what they already have
and want a little bit more were the ones who survived
and pro-created more often.
Its an excellent evolutionary strategy, but a poor
happiness strategy. If were always looking for whats
next it becomes quite difficult to appreciate what

is now. Sure, we can alter this wiring a bit through

conditioning, learned behaviors and changed mindsets,
but its an immovable piece of the human condition,
something we must always lean against.
So what does that mean? Learn to enjoy it. Learn to
enjoy the challenge. Learn to enjoy change and pursuit
of ones higher goals. Relish the chase, so to speak. A
big misconception in the self-help world is that being
satisfied with the present moment and working towards
ones future are somehow contradictory. Theyre not. If
life is a hamster wheel, then the goal isnt to actually
get anywhere, its to find a way to enjoy running.

Which brings me to another

point:

HAPPINESS IS NOT THE SAME

AS PLEASURE
When most people seek happiness, they are actually
seeking pleasure: good food, more time for TV and
movies, a new car, parties with friends, losing 10
pounds, becoming more popular, and so on.
But while pleasure is great, its not the same as
happiness. Pleasure is correlated with happiness, but
does not cause it. Ask any drug addict how their pursuit

of pleasure turned out. Ask a man who almost ate

himself to death how happy pursuing pleasure made
him feel.
Pleasure is a false god. Research shows that people who
focus their energy on materialistic and superficial
pleasures end up more anxious, more emotionally
unstable and less happy in the long-run. Pleasure is the
most superficial form of life satisfaction and therefore
the easiest. Pleasure is whats marketed to us. Its what
we fixate on. Its what we use to numb and distract
ourselves. But pleasure, while necessary, isnt
sufficient. Theres something more. Well come to it in a
while

Second point is:

HAPPINESS IS NOT THE SAME

AS POSITIVITY
Chances are you know someone who always appears to
be insanely happy regardless of the circumstances or
situation. Chances are this is actually one of the most
dysfunctional people you know. Denying negative
emotions leads to deeper and more prolonged negative
emotions and emotional dysfunction.
Its a simple reality: shit happens. Things go wrong.
People upset us. Mistakes are made and negative
emotions arise. And thats fine. Negative emotions are

necessary and healthy for maintaining a stable baseline

happiness in ones life.
The trick with negative emotions is to 1) express them
in a socially acceptable and healthy manner and 2)
express them in a way which aligns with your values.
Simple example: A value of mine is to pursue nonviolence. Therefore, when I get mad at somebody, I
express that anger, but I also make a point to not punch
them in the face. Radical idea, I know. (But I absolutely
will throw a socket wrench at the neighbors kids. Try
me.)
Theres a lot of people out there who subscribe to
always be positive ideology. These people should be
avoided just as much as someone who thinks the world
is an endless pile of shit. If your standard of happiness
is that youre always happy, no matter what, then you
need a reality check.
I think part of the allure of obsessive positivity is the
way which were marketed to. I think part of it is being
subjected to happy, smiley people on television
constantly. I think part of it are some people in the selfhelp industry that want you to feel like theres
something wrong with you all the time.
Or maybe its just that were lazy, and like anything else
we want the result without actually having to do the
hard work for it.

Which brings me to what actually drives happiness.

HAPPINESS IS THE PROCESS

OF BECOMING YOUR IDEAL
SELF
Completing a marathon makes us happier than eating a
chocolate cake. Raising a child makes us happier than
beating a video game. Starting a small business with
friends and struggling to make money makes us happier
than buying a new computer.
And the funny thing is that all three of the activities
above are exceedingly unpleasant and require setting
high expectations and potentially failing to always meet
them. Yet, they are some of the most meaningful
moments and activities of our lives. They involve pain,
struggle, even anger and despair, yet once weve done
them we look back and get misty-eyed about them.
Why?
Because its these sort of activities which allow us to
become our ideal selves. Its the perpetual pursuit of
fulfilling our ideal selves which grants us happiness,
regardless of superficial pleasures or pain, regardless of
positive or negative emotions. This is why some people
are happy in war and others are sad at weddings. Its

why some are excited to work and others hate parties.

The traits theyre inhabiting dont align with their ideal
selves.
The end results dont define our ideal selves. Its not
finishing the marathon that makes us happy, its
achieving a difficult long-term goal that does. Its not
having an awesome kid to show off that makes us
happy, but knowing that you gave yourself up to the
growth of another human being that is special. Its not
the prestige and money from the new business that
makes you happy, its the process of overcoming all
odds with people you care about.
And this is the reason that trying to be happy inevitably
will make you unhappy. Because to try to be happy
implies that you are not already inhabiting your ideal
self, you are not aligned with the qualities of who you
wish to be. After all, if you were acting out your ideal
self, then you wouldnt feel the need to try to be happy.
Cue statements about finding happiness within, and
knowing that youre enough. Its not that happiness
itself is in you, its that happiness occurs when you
decide to pursue whats in you.
And this is why happiness is so fleeting. Anyone who
has set out major life goals for themselves, only to
achieve them and realize that they feel the same
relative amounts of happiness/unhappiness, knows that
happiness always feels like its around the corner just

waiting for you to show up. No matter where you are in

life, there will always be thatone more thing you need
to do to be extra-especially happy.
And thats because our ideal self is always just around
that corner, always three steps ahead of us. We dream
of being a musician and when were a musician, we
dream of writing a film score and when write a film
score, we dream of writing a screenplay. And what
matters isnt that we achieve each of these plateaus of
success, but that were consistently moving towards
them, day after day, month after month, year after
year. The plateaus will come and go, and well continue
following our ideal self down the path of our lives.
And with that, with regards to being happy, it seems the
best advice is also the simplest: Imagine who you want
to be and then step towards it. Dream big and then do
something. Anything. The simple act of moving at all
will change how you feel about the entire process and
serve to inspire you further.
Let go of the imagined result its not necessary. The
fantasy and the dream are merely tools to get you off
your ass. It doesnt matter if they come true or not.
Live. Just live. Stop trying to be happy and just be.

Which brings me to another point

If I ask you, What do you want out of life? aka what

are your goals? and you say something like, I want to
be happy and have a great family and a job I like, have
a car, open up something its so ubiquitous that it
doesnt even mean anything.
A more interesting question, a question that perhaps
youve never considered before, is what pain do you
want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?
Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how
our lives turn out.
At the core of all human behavior, our needs are more
or less similar. Positive experience is easy to handle. Its
negative experience that we all, by definition, struggle
with. Therefore, what we get out of life is not
determined by the good feelings we desire but by what
bad feelings were willing and able to sustain to get us
to those good feelings.
People want an amazing physique. But you dont end up
with one unless you legitimately appreciate the pain
and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym
for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and
calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in
tiny plate-sized portions.

People want to start their own business or become

financially independent. But you dont end up a
successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to
appreciate the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated
failures, and working insane hours on something you
have no idea whether will be successful or not.
People want a partner, a spouse. But you dont end up
attracting someone amazing without appreciating the
emotional turbulence that comes with weathering
rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets
released, and staring blankly at a phone that never
rings. Its part of the game of love. You cant win if you
dont play.
What determines your success isnt What do you want
to enjoy? The question is, What pain do you want to
sustain? The quality of your life is not determined by
the quality of your positive experiences but the quality
of your negative experiences. And to get good at
dealing with negative experiences is to get good at
dealing with life.
Theres a lot of crappy advice out there that says,
Youve just got to want it enough!
Everybody wants something. And everybody wants
something enough. They just arent aware of what it is
they want, or rather, what they want enough.

Because if you want the benefits of something in life,

you have to also want the costs. If you want the beach
body, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the
early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the
yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky
business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a
person or ten thousand.
If you find yourself wanting something month after
month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you
never come any closer to it, then maybe what you
actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and
a false promise. Maybe what you want isnt what you
want, you just enjoy wanting. Maybe you dont actually
want it at all.
How do you choose to suffer?
You cant have a pain-free life. It cant all be roses and
unicorns. And ultimately thats the hard question that
matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much
all of us have similar answers. The more interesting
question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to
sustain?
That answer will actually get you somewhere. Its the
question that can change your life. Its what makes me
me and you you. Its what defines us and separates us
and ultimately brings us together.

We want the reward and not the struggle. We want the

result and not the process. We are in love not with the
fight but only the victory. And life doesnt work that way.
Who you are is defined by the values you are willing to
struggle for. People who enjoy the struggles of a gym
are the ones who get in good shape. People who enjoy
long workweeks and the politics of the corporate ladder
are the ones who move up it. People who enjoy the
stresses and uncertainty of the starving artist lifestyle
are ultimately the ones who live it and make it.
This is not a call for willpower or grit. This is not
another admonishment of no pain, no gain.
This is the most simple and basic component of life: our
struggles determine our successes.
In our culture, we regularly celebrate people who
become rich by doing exceptional things. But the nature
of those exceptional things often requires extremely
high opportunity costs. Bill Gates famously slept in his
office five days a week and remained single well into his
30s. Steve Jobs was a deadbeat father to his first
daughter. Brad Pitt cant leave his house without being
bukkaked by flashbulbs and cameras. The man has
stated that hes gone through periods of depression due
to the social isolation caused by his extreme fame.

The point is that doing anything truly great requires

some sort of inherent sacrifice that may or may not be
immediately obvious.
But heres the problem. Modern society multiplies our
opportunities. Therefore, modern society also multiplies
our opportunity costs, making it costlier and more
difficult to commit all of our time and energy to any one
thing without feeling some form of remorse or regret.
Enter the concept of FOMO or Fear of Missing Out.
We live a life that is constantly pelted with reminders of
everything we are unable to become.
Back, say, 200 years ago, people didnt have this
problem. If you were born a farmer, you likely didnt
have many opportunities beyond farming. Moreover,
you likely werent even aware of opportunities beyond
farming. Therefore, devoting everything in your life to
becoming an expert farmer involved next to no
opportunity costs and next to no FOMO. After all, there
was nothing else to miss out on.
In a bizarre and backwards way, people back in the day
could have it all. They had it all simply for the fact
that there was nothing else for them to have.
In a way, your so-called life purpose crisis is a luxury,
something youre allowed to have as a result of the
amazing freedoms the modern world has bestowed
upon you.

Whats changed is not our inability to manage our time

or balance our lives between work and play. Whats
changed is that we have more opportunities for work
and play than ever before more interests, more
awareness of every potential experience were passing
up. In short, we have more opportunity cost.
And were made aware of this in a terribly connected
way each day. Every person who decides to sacrifice
their dating life to advance their career is now
bombarded constantly by the rambunctious social lives
of their friends and strangers.
Every person who sacrifices their career prospects to
dedicate more time and energy to their family is now
bombarded with the material successes of the most
exceptional people around them at all times. Every
person who decides to take a thankless but necessary
role in society is now constantly drowned in inane
stories of the famous and beautiful.
This is the typical work/life balance, woe-is-me
complaint we always hear: I have all of these things I
want to do and not enough time.
But what if the answer isnt to do more?
What if the answer is to want less?

What if the solution is simply accepting our bounded

potential, our unfortunate tendency as humans to
inhabit only one place in space and time. What if we
recognize our lifes inevitable limitations and then
prioritize what we care about based on those
limitations?
What if its as simple as stating, This is what I choose
to value more than everything else, and then living
with it?
When we attempt to do everything, to fill up lifes
checklist, to have it all, were essentially attempting
to live a valueless life, a life where everything is equally
gained and nothing lost. When everything is necessary
and desired equally, then nothing is necessary or
desired at all.
The people who struggle with the so-called life
purpose question, always complain that they dont
know what to do. But the real problem is not that they
dont know what to do. Its just that they dont know
what to give up.