How to Be Happy
Happiness is a choice.
“A happy life consists in a mind which is free, upright, undaunted, and steadfast, beyond the influence of fear or desire.” — Seneca, On the Happy Life
For a long time, I had a number in my head.
It was a monthly revenue target for my work. Once I reached it, I thought, I’d feel secure. I’d stop checking how other people were doing. I’d finally relax into what I had built instead of treating every good month as a jolt that I now needed a better one.
Then I reached it.
For a few days, the number felt as significant as I had imagined. I kept returning to it. Years of work seemed to have hardened into proof that I was moving in the right direction.
But within weeks, I was making fresh projections.
The target that had occupied my mind for so long had become the starting point for another one. Sure, it had improved my life in ways I could have never imagined. But it had failed at making me feel content.
We do this with more than money. It’s with our houses, cars, exam results, job titles, relationships, sex, follower counts and places we’ve always wanted to visit. We imagine the future event so often that it begins to feel like a threshold. Life before it feels undone. Life after we get this and that will feel real nice.
Then you get want you want, and life continues.
You wake up late. The sink needs cleaning. Someone sends an irritating message. You begin wanting something else.
Desire rarely reduces after getting what it asked for.
Epicurus saw the problem more than two thousand years ago. “Nothing is enough,” he wrote,“for the man to whom enough is too little.” That’s the truth. We keep assuming the object we desire is inadequate- the salary was too small, the house wasn’t right, the achievement wasn’t impressive enough. Epicurus asks us to consider- what was the point of wanting and getting if not to enjoy.
why good things become ordinary- meh
Psychologists call it…