Is It Always Best to "Do What Makes You Happy"?
The paradox of comfort and struggle, with reference to ice cream, quests, and transformation.
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Hopefully I have noted the concerns with just doing more. Being obsessed with achievement was a major problem for me. I changed my life in response to realizing this, and Iāll say more about it as we go.
But these concerns could also be misunderstood as wholesale rejection of hard work and challengeāwhich isnāt the case at all!
I actually love working hard on something Iām excited about. I believe in challenge and striving as core values.
So while I have no problem critiquing the cult of productivity for productivityās sake (and there is more to be said on that in other posts, stay tuned), thereās also something else we need to discuss.
This topic can be summed up as: Challenge is good for you.
Doing hard things doesnāt always feel good at first, but it usually does afterwards. You canāt just ādo what makes you happyāāat least, not if you want to live the most meaningful life.
alternatively:Ā
What makes you happy in any given moment or situation is not always whatās best for you later.
so now letās get to itā¦Ā
Ice Cream for Dinner
Letās start with an example, from a New Yorker profile of Jesse Itzler. Iāll paraphrase this slightly and add the emphasis.Ā
His home is an incubator for optimization. Itzler recently told an audience, āI said to my brother about my son, āHeās a good swimmer, but he doesnāt really have that eye of the tiger,ā and my brother said, āThatās O.K., as long as heās happy.ā ā There were murmurs of approval. āAnd Iām, like, āNo! Heād be happy playing Fortnite and eating HƤagen-Dazs every night. We want him to live up to his potential.ā āĀ
Itzler is married to Sara Blakely, the billionaire founder of Spanx. No doubt their son will experience plenty of pressure in growing up in such a household. And maybe some people will have a problem with the burden of āliving up to [oneās] potential.ā
All fair points. But I think the much greater point is ā¦ Itzler is right. His son might actually be happy playing Fortnite all the time and eating ice cream for dinner, but as parents, Itzler and Blakely have decided that these are not great life choices for him.
Itās Not Just the Fortnite-playing Teenager
MOST OF US are like the adolescent who would happily choose to check out. Or at least, most of us can be. What we want in the short-term is not always whatās best for us in the long-term, or even the medium-term.
So this is what we have to navigate, if weāre going to be long-term or medium-term happy.
Yet the answer we are sometimes pointed towards is to opt out. In China a version of it is called lie-flat. In the west it takes on a different hue. Sometimes it looks like:
Capitalism is killing us, so we should roll over and do nothing.
The world is hard, the system is rigged, so thereās no sense in trying to rise above it.
Nothing I do matters, so Iāll just stop trying.
Somewhere along the way, āJust do what makes you happyā becomes āstop striving.ā
But if you opt-out, you end up back with Fortnite and ice cream, or whatever that looks like for you. Itās not just hard work you retreat fromāyou walk away from your big dreams!
Before long, you end up with existential nihilism. Everything is meaningless.
Activism Is Hard
Speaking of nihilism, consider the ājust do what makes you happyā model in the context of activism, whether social, environmental, or something else.
To be clear, Iām not saying you should build your inner life around monitoring every problem in the world. In fact, I think thatās a pretty terrible idea. You canāt be effective in doing something about everything, and youāll just be miserable if you try.
BUT! Imagine thereās something you really care aboutāsome sort of injustice or inequity or just a big problem somewhere that you feel called to respond to.
Your work in this area is almost certainly going to be hard and difficult. It will NOT make you happy all the time.1
If itās not hard, isnāt it just performative? Thereās a cost to disruption. Most of the people Iāve known who work in extreme situationsāincluding humanitarian aid workers, in the kind of activism Iām most familiar withāarenāt really in it for the day-to-day joy.
This is not to say there arenāt moments of joy. And most of them would say itās all worth it in the end. But itās also hard! More than one has told me they really would rather be doing just about anything else.
āIf this problem were fixed, I wouldnāt ever want to relive itā is a common sentiment.
Whether activism or just something hard for the sake of itself, many things worth doing provide little to no sense of instant gratification.
Dream Your Dreams ā¦ but Also Get to WorkĀ
What it comes down to is that some dreams are DIFFICULT to achieve.
You donāt just manifest them into existence, you have to work for them. Progress is not usually linear. You advance, retreat, encounter obstacles and find ways around them, and so on. Itās the heroās journey and you are the hero.Ā
The hero must answer a call that is different than ākick back and relaxā or āgive up when things get hard.āĀ
You must navigate the tension between these things, not giving yourself over too far to either sideāor youāll be missing out.2 Obsessed with outcomes? No fun in the end.
Abandon all sense of challenge and hard things in your life? Might seem fun, but again, map it out and see where it leads.Ā
So you canāt just do what makes you happy, at least not if youāre in search of whatās most meaningful. You need to find what feels purposeful. Youāll be made better through the process, the search, and the discovery.Ā
Just as I see many people making the mistake Iāve made, in going too far down a rabbit hole of pursuit, my sense is that others are making a different mistake that is equally harmful: turning away from anything that requires strenuous effort.Ā
Thatās the answer Iāve found: work hard, on the right things. Itās a big part of what Iāll continue to share with you this year.
Naturally, I encourage you to adapt it in your own way. Take what suits you. Or, of course, discard all of it. Itās your life!Ā
But just be careful of pushing away from the edge, and rejecting anything that seems ambitious or difficult. The edge is good for you. It might be tough, but ultimately it will make you happier.Ā
Conversation Starters
1. What was the last really hard thing you did?Ā
2. Challenge the argument in this post. Itās okay, I can handle it. :)
3. Just to be clear, nothing wrong with ice cream. Whatās your favorite flavor?
4. Should I visit every country in the world again? Seriously thinking about it.Ā
Coming Up
Iāll be in New York City for a talk on getting a book deal next week. Would love to see you if youāre around!
Big thanks to everyone who took the āDoing Thingsā survey last week. Iāve learned a lot from your notes and will share an update soon.
Should we also give up on hard causes because they are hard? Iām often reminded of the Jewish dictum, "Even though we cannot solve a problem, we are not free to desist from trying."
Not the kind of missing out thatās good for youābeing content with what you haveābut the kind that is easily fixable.
I will say this: Sometimes the activism needs to be for yourself first and foremost. You can't help the world if you can barely help yourself. "Clean up your own house" means understanding why you are the way you are, seeking help to get clarification, and pushing yourself to not get caught up on the trivial many.
Hesitation means no. So, when you hestitate, ask why and break it down, or at least for me.
Then again, I am a trauma filled man who can barely function, so don't listen to what I have to say haha
Most important comment: YES, you should visit every country in the world again! Didn't know you did it once before! GO GET IT I say! You might be my long lost brother!
HARD for me was realizing I needed to file for divorce and admit failure. My definition of insanity would have been staying with the man who thought he owned and operated me like his Ford Edge - except he liked his car and treated it well, unlike how he treated me. I researched and researched and researched (I do have ADHD after all...we're EXPERTS with research) the best possible way to leave a covert malignant narcissist, served up with a side of anti-social personality disorder. Answer: there isn't one. Rip off the bandaid and be prepared to hemorrhage. Thank God for the Navy and months out to sea....for him, not me!
So in preparation for all the hemorrhaging and possible death of the rest of me (my soul was long gone at that point), I took myself on a "sabbatical" while my husband was away on deployment. I packed my carryon with enough clothes to get my by, donned my laptop, my friend's mom drove in from NM to be my house/cat sitter, and I found myself sitting at the bar at the San Diego airport. "Too late now," I thought. "Here I go!" I flew to Istanbul. Then Cairo. Then Crete. Then Athens where I got on a Viking cruise and ended up in Venice. I had the time of my life with perfect strangers who became - and still ARE - people I call my friends. My month-long trip gave me the strength and courage to take the leap! I knew I wasn't happy, but I didn't realized just how miserable I had become.
And believe it or not, there is one MORE blessing in disguise that I didn't realize was SO HUGE at the time. I traveled during Covid - when it was bad and when we had to have negative tests in-hand to even get on a plane. We had exposure tracking devices on the cruise and had to leave a tube of spit on the end of my bed every day! I never got Covid and my nasal passages were bloody at times from the badly-administered Covid tests. But what I did get was cheap travel and hotels because everyone was too afraid to take the chance. I was, too! I stepped outside my cozy comfort zone and went for it. Best decision I have ever made, with memories and photos I never have to give back or lose in my divorce!
Wanderlust is wonderful. There's a lot to explore out there! Go find what makes you tick.