"Happiness is a problem"

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.