12/6/2014

Stop Trying to Be Happy

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MARKMANSON
Author. Thinker. Life Enthusiast.

STOPTRYI
NG TO
BEHAPPY

Oc
t
ober10,2013 8mi
nut
er
ead byMar
kMans
on
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12/6/2014

Stop Trying to Be Happy

f you have to try to be cool, you will never be cool. If

you have to try to be happy, then you will never be
happy. Maybe the problem these days is people are
just trying too hard.

Happiness, like other emotions, is not something you obtain, but rather
something you inhabit. When youre raging pissed and throwing a socket
wrench at the neighbors kids, you are not self-conscious about your state of
anger. You are not thinking to yourself, Am I nally angry? Am I doing this
right? No, youre out for blood. You inhabit and live the anger. You are the
anger. And then its gone.
Just as a condent man doesnt wonder if hes condent, a happy man does
not wonder if hes happy. He simply is.
What this implies is that happiness is not achieved in itself, but rather it is
the side effect of a particular set of ongoing life experiences. This gets mixed
up a lot, especially since happiness is marketed so much these days as a goal
in and of itself. Buy X and be happy. Learn Y and be happy. But you cant
buy happiness and you cant achieve happiness. It just is. And it is once you
get other parts of your life in order.
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HAPPI
NESSI
SNOTTHESAMEAS
PLEASURE
When most people seek
happiness, they are actually
seeking pleasure: good food,
more sex, more time for TV
and movies, a new car,
parties with friends, full
body massages, losing 10
pounds, becoming more
popular, and so on.
But while pleasure is great,
Tony Montana didnt seem too happy.
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 an adulterer who shattered her
family and lost her children whether pleasure ultimately made her happy.
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 supercial pleasures end up more anxious, more
emotionally unstable and less happy in the long-run. Pleasure is the most
supercial form of life satisfaction and therefore the easiest. Pleasure is
whats marketed to us. Its what we xate on. Its what we use to numb and
distract ourselves. But pleasure, while necessary, isnt sucient. Theres
something more.

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HAPPI
NESSDOESNOTREQUI
RE
LOWERI
NG ONES
EXPECTATI
ONS
A popular narrative lately is that people are becoming unhappier because
were all narcissistic and grew up being told that were special unique
snowakes who are going to change the world and we have Facebook
constantly telling us how amazing everyone elses lives are, but not our own,
so we all feel like crap and wonder where it all went wrong. Oh, and all of
this happens by the of age 23.
Sorry, but no. Give people a bit more credit than that.
For instance, a friend of mine recently started a high-risk business venture.
He dried up most of his savings trying to make it work and failed. Today,
hes happier than ever for his experience. It taught him many lessons about
what he wanted and didnt want in life and it eventually led him to his
current job, which he loves. Hes able to look back and be proud that he
went for it because otherwise he would have always wondered what if?
and that would have made him unhappier than any failure would have.
The failure to meet our own expectations is not antithetical to happiness,
and Id actually argue that the ability to fail and still appreciate the
experience is actually a fundamental building block for happiness.
If you thought you were going to make $100,000 and drive a Porsche
immediately out of college, then your standards of success were skewed and
supercial, you confused your pleasure for happiness, and the painful smack
of reality hitting you in the face will be one of the best lessons life ever gives
you.
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The lower expectations argument falls victim to the same old mindset:
that happiness is derived from without. The joy of life is not having a
$100,000 salary. Its working to reach a $100,000 salary, and then working
for a $200,000 salary, and so on.
So, I say raise your expectations. Elongate your process. Lay on your death
bed with a to-do list a mile long and smile at the innite opportunity granted
to you. Create ridiculous standards for yourself and then savor the inevitable
failure. Learn from it. Live it. Let the ground crack and rocks crumble
around you because thats how something amazing grows, through the
cracks.

HAPPI
NESSI
SNOTTHESAMEAS
POSI
TI
VI
TY
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 ne. 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
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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 non-violence. 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 youve been watching way
too much Leave It To Beaver and need a reality check (but dont worry, I
promise not to punch you in the face).
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 self-help
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.

HAPPI
NESSI
STHEPROCESSOF
BECOMI
NG YOURI
DEALSELF
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
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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 fullling our ideal selves which grants us
happiness, regardless of supercial 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 dene our ideal selves. Its not nishing the marathon
that makes us happy, its achieving a dicult 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 nding happiness within, and knowing that youre
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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 eeting. 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 that one 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 lm score and when write a lm 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.

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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
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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, man. Just live. Stop trying to be happy and just be.

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WHATI
STHEKEYTO HAPPI
NESS?
Happiness doesnt work in the way most people think it does. In fact, it
operates in kind of a backwards way. To nd out what I mean, put
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