When we talk about happiness, we may mean different things, which makes talking about it less clear. Is happiness excitement? Adventure? Joy? Peace? Achieving a goal? I would argue when I talk about happiness it is close to something like peace and contentment.
Contentment is a superpower. The ability to have a real, positive state in a variety of situations. I do not mean lying to yourself and telling yourself that everything is okay when it is not. I mean that moment where you shift and think, man this is valuable even though it is hard or not how I thought it would go. Or that you can benefit from this situation and are happy about it.
Part of the thing is context. Even if like something does or does not go your way, it is kind of inconsequential. You still won the lottery by being born, by being able to breathe, communicate, move around, and participate in life. It is like a kid crying because they do not have THAT toy, when they have like everything else around them.
How do you do that? By being able to see and appreciate what is going on. Have you ever had a moment where you actually stop and smell the roses? Beautiful sunny day? A crisp fall afternoon? Or a mysterious winter evening and you see the glint of snow in the moon? There is something there. Being able to observe and appreciate it is what is going on.
The other thing is that, well, what if you want to win? Sure there is chicken soup for the soul when you want to get over grief or appreciate life, but like, what if you want to fucking win? Get something difficult done? Push through a difficult thing?
I think the idea of gritting through and fucking killing yourself over something does 'work' in achievement, but like you lose in life. It is the classic tale of someone going after some huge achievement only to realize at the end they are sad, mentally in a bad place, and maybe even morally or ethically bankrupt. I mean that story is in like every religious and non-religious story telling practice.
After actually observing successful people, I really do believe another approach is possible. An approach of contentment and happiness. Like I am not saying everyone should quit their job and become a singer or a beach bum. I am saying that you can do what you do and have contentment. And I am also saying, maybe you find joy in making music. You do not need to wait until you have a perfect job, lots of money, and all the gear to start doing that. You could probably carve out some time to start enjoying playing music now, even with a job. I know there are people who bring instruments to work and find a quiet, out of the way, conference room to practice during lunch.
Being happy and content with your situation does not mean being lazy and doing nothing all day. Or maybe it does. -> It would get too boring. Try it. It can also include wanting to help people, want to improve things for people, etc.
This mindset from a sense of wealth is really the game.
I mean like if you are doing shit that is always breaking you down, how much harder is it to have a good life? If you can take what you are doing and appreciate the good parts, you can still work towards something that you like, and also, well you actually develop the sense of what you like.
I think that is part of it too. People that do shit they do not like all the time, so they can be happy later, start to confuse happiness with power, sex, adrenaline, domination, and drama. Right? It is actually super weird when you start to look at it.
Just because it has worked for you up until now, does not mean it will work for you in the future. On the next stage. In fact, it might be fucking up your life. Why would you choose to live a shitty, angry life at 100% 'money' when you could live a great, happy, fulfilled life at 80% or 120% 'money'?
You would do it because you do not have the skills in the happy life department. You think that 'success' is defined by some societal shit that is like just made up. You can even be competitive and have a great, happy life. I know people that are like genuiinely nice happy people who do combat sports. On the other hand, there are some people who are just angry and fucking raging during training all the time. I do not think the second person always wins the competition. Long term,I know they do not win.
It is a misunderstanding of doing stuff.
You get money or happiness by doing certain things. They are somewhat independent. People treat it as a zero sum game because they do not understand that it is a positive sum game.
If you run your success engine on anger, you'll burn out. I have seen it over and over. If you run it on good, quality fuel, that is a long term success machine.
Again do not twist my words. I am saying you can be content and high achieving. I am saying they are fairly independent, but related. I am saying that they are skillsets. I am saying that mindset is one thing and action is another thing. One person sees a squirrel and is like, oh cool squirrel. Another person sees a squirrel and is like, what a fucking pest. They blame the squirrel because like they did not think to put a net over their fruit. Or grow more fruit and account for squirrels eating it. Either way, if you want to have fruit, you have to do the same things. One person is just pissed about it.
And like even if there is a downside, which there is not, it still wins on the life scale. One person wins at a thing, and they think that is 90% of the game. When really it is 20% of the game and they have been concentrating so hard on that 20% that they have pretty much busted up their entire life. That is what I am saying to avoid.
I am sayng you can run your life on good fuel.