So, as a recap, what makes you happy is, one, doing things that are generally known to make people happy, and two, having theoretical ideas and fantasies regarding what would make you happy in the future.
What makes your self happy is knowing clearly what activities give you joy, and what would give you satisfaction in the long run.
WHY DO WE CHASE AFTER HAPPINESS LIKE JUNKIES?
The honest answer is because it feels good. And that’s why we are trying to find deep, spiritual and mystical secrets behind being happy, relaxed, calm, comfortable and cheerful all the time. We are fucking idiots, that’s what we are.
The truth is, life doesn’t revolve around happiness. Life is a lot of things that have nothing to do with happiness. But we think it does, because happiness feels fucking great. It’s just the best. So, whatever makes you happy, whatever makes you feel good, is what you want. And whatever doesn’t and stops making you happy is what you don’t care about anymore. We are happiness-junkies. People have left long, stable relationships or cheated on their partners because they met someone new who excites them—that’s how much of a happiness-junkie people can be.
The problem with responding more to feeling good is that chances are you may become a person who just focuses on feelings rather than thinking. And thinking is the only thing that will ensure you don’t fuck up your life. Ideally, an intelligent person would be one who is more thinking-based than feeling-based.
Feeling-based sounds something like: This makes me feel good, therefore this is good. I want it. Thinking-based sounds like: Just because something makes me feel good doesn’t mean it’s good. I will think about if I really want it.
A feeling-based person is impulsive, excitable, lacks a thoughtful process, doesn’t take the future into consideration, and is therefore easily defeated by their own feelings and easily manipulated by those who can create nice feelings in them.
A thinking-based person is one who considers stability, the future, the information at hand, and the fact that feelings change all the fucking time. Feelings are unreliable as fuck.
The point of our personal development would be going from a feeling-based person to a thinking-based one. As a child, we are clueless about the self, and are almost completely feeling-based. So, back then, your wants weren’t decided by keeping the ‘self’ in mind. It was simple. Whatever made you feel good became your wants—whatever you enjoyed, that’s what you wanted to do all the time. Well, life was simple back then, and you were pretty fucking stupid.
So, naturally, as an adult that shouldn’t be the case, right? You are supposed to have grown into a thinking person now; well, have you? Have your wants changed from what they used to be when you were a kid—simply being happy all the time? What about other people? Are most of them still chasing after whatever makes them feel good and excited, as answers to being happy?
Two reasons why most of us remain feeling-based happiness junkies:
Nobody tells us this: Life is a lot of things that have nothing to do with happiness, but if you do them right, the result is going to be happiness. In short, happiness is a by-product of life done right. And I hope this does not come as a surprise, but doing things right requires thinking, a lot of it.
The more you chase after feeling good, the more your ass is going to be kicked by life because, in doing so, you ignore all those important things you need to do.
The more you focus on thinking, the better the decisions you make keeping in mind not feelings, but long-term, stable results.
The want to be happy in the moment works temporarily. What you are running after is momentary happiness. So, you do experience short bursts of pleasure whenever you are having fun in your teen years and twenties. It works quite well up until you are forced to realise the distinction between momentary and long-term happiness. The realisation comes after years of failed attempts to try and stretch those momentary pleasures into long-lasting ones. This could very well be in your thirties. Do you know what this means? That, even as an adult you continue chasing after a definition of happiness and a list of what makes you happy which you came up with when you were a fucking kid. Why? Because it made that kid happy, you think the same will continue working with an adult too. Well, this goes to show that most people are simply children who have aged.
HOW HAPPINESS SCREWS YOU OVER AND OVER!
Let’s now discover the unique ways in which the childish want to be happy continues to fuck people throughout the course of their adult life.
Have you heard people say this:
1. Why am I not happy even though I have a great life?
It’s because ‘the list of what makes you happy’ was decided back when you were a clueless, confused kid. And you stuck with that list because it did bring you momentary happiness from being accepted by and having relationships with fantasy people, fantasy experiences, and even achieving some milestones in your career for the approval of these fantasy people. But the focus on the self consistently remained dormant. Therefore, the result now is: you know how to be happy in the moment, but you aren’t satisfied because you have a very distant relationship with your ‘self’. You are still as clueless about who you are and what makes your ‘self’ happy as you were fifteen fucking years ago.
As a side note, now you know when philosophers said Know thyself, it wasn’t some simple thing you didn’t need to think much about, it meant your fucking life.
2. I know I shouldn’t be with them, yet I can’t stop loving them. I can’t stop chasing after them. I can’t move on from that person.
You can’t because a part of you is genuinely convinced that their union with your existence brings you the ultimate happiness. You feel that way because of the happiness that you once felt with them, which according to your mind is ‘the best feeling ever’. And because your goal in life is to be happy, and you currently don’t know of any other happiness better than what you felt with them, you obsess over them even though their presence is currently brutalising you with pain. If you miss them, it’s because they made you happy once. You miss that particular happiness, not them really. You will disregard their existence the moment you find it with another person. It’s because you are a happiness-junkie, that hit of happiness is much more valuable to you than your self-respect, mental health and the overall peacefulness in your life. So you say, fuck it, and keep going after that hit.
3. I know I should be working hard, but I waste my day doing bullshit things on my phone, being lazy and useless. And because of that I am filled with regret.
You don’t work, because whatever you do instead of working makes you happy. It’s as simple as that. You being lazy does not mean you are dead in those moments. You are still working towards feeling great, quite actively so, by watching some comedy, drama, commentary, news, animal rescue videos, or whatever it is that you watch. You do work a lot—except it’s in the direction of gathering information which is of no use to your real work. So, a correct way to voice your displeasure is, I was unproductive, not, I didn’t do anything, because you did plenty of things, they were all just complete shit in terms of productivity. Things that add betterment to your life aren’t about making you happy, they’re about hard work. And you consciously choose momentary happiness over the betterment of your life because you are fucking addicted to being happy. In short, fuck life in the long term so I can be happy in the moment, is what you do.
4. I can’t say ‘no’ to people. Because of this, people often impose themselves on my wants and feelings and take advantage of my niceness.
You can’t say ‘no’ because you can’t afford to make people unhappy. If they are unhappy with you, you are unhappy, and you want to be happy. You may tell others: I became unhappy because I didn’t get to do what I wanted, but the real story doesn’t stop there. What you don’t tell them is that the unhappiness vanishes the moment you see others being happy with you, despite the fact that you still didn’t get to do what you wanted. People being happy with you gives you so
much pleasure that it feels like a much bigger reward than what you would feel if you stood up for yourself and said ‘no’. In short, because happiness is your priority, self-respect is ignored. And that is why, even though you complain to people about how unhappy it makes you, you keep repeating it, especially with people you desperately want to make happy. And you may do that at the cost of working overtime, sleeping less than planned, disrupting your own plans entirely, all because it gives you a great burst of pleasure for having ‘helped them’.
5. I am a dumbass because I have no idea what I want to do, and others are doing so much better than me.
You are unhappy because others are doing better than you, in which case you would be happy if you were doing better than others. At any point, the source of your happiness and unhappiness rests in comparison to others. The act of comparing yourself has its basis in nothing but simple observation. A comparison could be triggered from seeing anything and anybody. It could be as vague as comparing yourself to a celebrity, a person you have met for the first time, or a person you have only heard about from others. From that, you conclude: They are better than me. How fucking dumb is that?
It is not a comparison of data as much as it is of your perception of them. It is you drowning in sorrow because you have assumed they have something that you don’t, and that something would make you happy. These assumptions exist only because you have no idea what would make your ‘self’ happy.
And because you don’t know that, the entire focus of your mind is on the outside, instead of looking inward for the answers. You are busy wanting what others have, learning what makes others happy, copying the lifestyles of others, coveting what you don’t have, and as a result developing a deep sense of disregard and ungratefulness towards what you do have.
6. Life was so much fun back then, life was great. I wish we could go back and live like that forever!
The thing is, you were the happiest at your stupidest self—when you were young, in college, school, with your friends. You were experimenting with rebellion against structure, engaging in activities that produced rewards (like gaming), entertainment (with friends) and pleasure (partying, dating, alcohol, weed, fun). What you don’t realise is that, at that time, you could afford that experimentation. There was no real structure. You were free of any responsibilities, duties and consequences. You were in a safe environment. Now, you are not. What worked then won’t work now because the rules, environment and your age have changed, but your want to be happy has not. This explains the confusion as to why the same degree of happiness is not reachable anymore; hence, you blame ‘growing up’ for it.
If ‘growing up’ was the problem, then you are suggesting a life without responsibilities, duties and consequences is better, and that is called escapism. As a kid, your reality was structurally designed to keep you as free as possible, therefore those wants worked. That reality was manipulated, the current one is not. Ask any person whose life growing up was a continuous battle with tragedy, troubles and struggle if they wish to go back, and you will know the difference. Your responsibilities, duties and consequences pose as a problem to you because you are a grown-person with the wants of a clueless kid—to be happy all the time.
All of the above problems revolve around four things:
Making yourself happy.
Making others happy to make yourself happy.
Making yourself sad because others are presumably happy.
Making yourself sad because you used to be happy.
The common link, as you can see, is seeking happiness. We keep prioritising it because we are convinced that happiness is what we want from life, and that it is the ultimate answer. In doing so, we tend to de-prioritise most things that have nothing to do with happiness. They could be your self-respect, conscience, morality, rational thinking, common sense, logic and self-betterment. I am pretty sure that, right now, you would choose the other things as they sound sensible. But, in life, it is not possible as long as you are convinced that happiness is the final goal. You have to chuck that thought out of your mind. You have to say, fuck happiness. I don’t want to be happy, I want to be satisfied in life. I want self-satisfaction.
How do you make that transition? Let’s talk about it in the next chapter.
CHAPTER NINE
CHOOSE SATISFACTION, NOT HAPPINESS
Mind you, self-satisfaction does contain precise knowledge of what would make the ‘self’ happy, but it’s only one part of the whole picture.
Self-satisfaction starts with the knowledge of the self. The thing with knowledge of such kind is, when it’s not applied, it gets locked up in the theoretical side of your brain to be used later when you wish to sound smart or give smart advice. Knowledge of self, therefore, can only be achieved by knowing with certainty that it works when applied in reality.
LET’S ANALYSE WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY
So, what is it that makes you happy currently?
Well, it could range from your phone to your friends to that person you love. It doesn’t matter if it is productive or unproductive. We are looking at everything. It could be reading books, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries, and it could be wasting time with friends, getting high, watching endless bullshit videos, and scrolling through pictures of people to jerk off to—whatever you do.
I want you to start looking at whatever you do with an assumption: you would be fine without everything you currently believe makes you happy.
You might wonder: How is that helpful?
The thing about whatever you think are your wants is, they probably haven’t been chosen by you. You have to understand, to a lot of people and companies, you are a customer, you are part of a statistic, you are a target audience. You are being sold new wants every day. Your mind is being fucked with properly so you choose and like certain things. To put it differently, those things are designed in a certain way so that your mind will like them.
You may say: Well, even if I am manipulated to like something, I still like it. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing it.
Fair argument on the outside, but what it lacks is choice. Manipulation tends to seriously fuck with your ability to make a rational choice. Manipulation feeds on weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Anything that is built on targeting your weakness and naivety, and making you its customer, is fucking vile because it doesn’t care about you at all. It doesn’t care about your age, maturity and personal development either. You are a user—that’s all it cares about.
Most of our wants come from:
Whatever society has made you believe is awesome (conditioning).
Whatever you see and have learned that others want (following others).
Whatever appears to be exciting to you (your impulse).
So when you assume, ‘I will be fine without everything I currently believe makes me happy’, you question the source and legitimacy of what your wants are. Are they even chosen by you? That’s the current point.
Whatever your wants are, let’s divide them into two categories: the first would be wants that contribute to long-term results; the second would be wants that bring you momentary happiness. Let’s call the first category ‘value’, because they bring value to your life, and let’s call the second ‘interest’, because they deal with your actual interests in life.
LONG-TERM HAPPINESS
Under value or long-term results, your wants are further divided into two sections: stability and cultivation.
Stability: Doing these things give a structure to your future and the opportunity to make it even better. They make you aware of what you want from your day, what you don’t want, and what you want only in controlled quantities. Doing them makes you feel glad and gives you purpose in life. They tend not to give instant happiness, but help you get closer to peacefulness.
Cultivation: Doing these things helps in the cultivation of your mind, for example, listening to a podcast which gives you knowledge and different perspectives, watching movies or TV shows that make
you think, and watching and listening to people who help you figure out better ways to deal with daily struggles and needless desires.
They give you reference points and clarity about ‘self’, not just mere viewing pleasure. Do you at times watch particular scenes from movies because they instantly make you focused? You do that because they have become reference points and reminders to what your self wants. Therefore, whenever you’re unmotivated, they help bring clarity instantaneously.
Any of your wants that serve stability and cultivation majorly influence how you think in life, the choices you make and how you see things.
So, out of all your actions and activities that you may call your daily wants, how many fall under ‘value’? Your first answer may be: Absolutely nothing.
Don’t worry, it’s very common. People usually prepare themselves when there is an urgency and need. Without those, we tend to just keep doing whatever we do normally. People tend to realise the importance of the category ‘value’ when they look back on their lives and say, You know, I could have done this. I know I could have. I had what it takes in me, but I wasted my time doing stupid shit.
The realisation comes late, usually when you believe that the opportunity or time has passed. By opportunity, it could be anything—a skill, personality development, or developing control over certain tendencies in you that have led to harm in your career and relationships. It’s one of the worst feelings, knowing you could have controlled and changed the outcome of something that now you regret: If only I had realised it at the right time. There is no known deadline for the ‘right time’, only the truth that it will come. The only sensible thing you can do to protect what matters is prepare yourself for it. That’s how you prosper in the long run, by thinking, knowing and acting on what’s best for the long run—financially, mentally, sexually and physically.
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