Mark Manson
Everyone wants
to be happy. Happiness is like taking a drug – the more we have it, the more we
crave “the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined
with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile” (quoting
positive psychology researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky).
Unfortunately,
like all other drug effects, happiness
is not a permanent state. It gets you high very quickly, the awesome feeling
lasts for some time and then either your body and mind adjust to the current
state of reality (which makes it predictable, not anymore special and usually
boring) or the stuff supply is being cut off and you need to cope with the ugly
detox.
On top of all
that, we have so many problems in our daily lives. Most of them imaginary, full
of excuses (“I’m too short, so I won’t achieve anything in sports, I’m not
smart enough, so can’t make good money, my parents/siblings didn’t love me
enough, so I will never marry a nice guy/lady”). Some may seem more real, but
the excuses are usually still lame (“I have children, so I can’t have a career,
I have a shitty job, so I won’t achieve anything great in life, I haven’t done
anything spectacular so far, so I will be a loser forever” etc.). Some of us
have also real issues like illness, huge mortgage we struggle to afford or old
parents to take care of. And how often do we use them to feel special and appreciated?
It’s time to admit
it. We love having those problems putting us in the center of the universe. And
let’s face it. A personal problem is
what actually makes us feel alive and important. We claim, that we want to
be problem free, when in fact having problems make us driven for change and
give us the purpose. They force us to move our butts and do something that
matters. And what would make us really happy? We usually think, that it will
happen when the problem we have would be solved and gone. But is it really the
case?
I’ve been
reading a book called “The subtle art of not giving a fuck” by Mark Manson and
he described happiness from a very unique angle. Mark doesn’t see
happiness as a lack of pain, suffering and struggle (that combined we could
call “problems”). On the contrary. Problems
may be the best things to keep us happy. Whenever we engage to solve a problem,
we feel motivated and great about ourselves – because we’re doing something
that matters to us. Which ultimately means, that being happy is actually solving our own problems. Simple and amazing.
So how to make
our lives happier? What is the golden recipe we can take away now and use it forever?
Well, here it is, in Mark’s book.
"True happiness occurs only when you find the
problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving".
I’ll leave you
with that. I think this knowledge will help my life a lot and hopefully make
yours better (and happier) as well.
