Happiness is being satisfied with what you have.
Success comes from dissatisfaction. Choose.
Confucius says you have two lives, and the second one begins when you realize you only have one. When and how did your second life begin?
That’s a very deep question. Most people who are past a certain age have had this feeling or phenomenon; they’ve gone through life a certain way and then gotten to a certain stage and had to make some pretty big changes. I’m definitely also in that boat.
I struggled for a lot of my life to have certain material and social successes. When I achieved those material and social successes (or at least was beyond a point where they didn’t matter as much), I realized the people around me who had achieved similar successes and were on their way to achieving more didn’t seem all that happy. In my case, there was definitely hedonic adaptation: I’d very quickly get used to anything.
This led me to the conclusion, which seems trite, that happiness is internal. That conclusion set me on a path of working more on my internal self and realizing all real success is internal and has very little to do with external circumstances.
One has to do the external thing anyway. We’re biologically hard-wired. It’s glib to say, “You can just turn it off.” Your own life experience will bring you back to the internal path. [7]
The problem with getting good at a game, especially one with big rewards, is you continue playing it long after you should have outgrown it.
Survival and replication drive put us on the work treadmill. Hedonic adaptation keeps us there. The trick is knowing when to jump off and play instead.
Who do you think of as successful?
Most people think of someone as successful when they win a game, whatever game they play themselves. If you’re an athlete, you’re going to think of a top athlete. If you’re in business, you might think Elon Musk.
A few years ago, I would have said Steve Jobs, because he was part of the driving force creating something that changed lives for all of humanity. I think Marc Andreessen is successful, not because of his recent incarnation as a venture capitalist, but because of the incredible work he did with Netscape. Satoshi Nakamoto is successful in that he created Bitcoin, which is this incredible technological creation that will have repercussions for decades to come. Of course, Elon Musk, because he changed everyone’s viewpoint on what is possible with modern technology and entrepreneurship. I consider those creators and commercializers successful.
To me, the real winners are the ones who step out of the game entirely, who don’t even play the game, who rise above it. Those are the people who have such internal mental and self-control and self-awareness, they need nothing from anybody else. There are a couple of these characters I know in my life. Jerzy Gregorek—I would consider him successful because he doesn’t need anything from anybody. He’s at peace, he’s healthy, and whether he makes more money or less money compared to the next person has no effect on his mental state.
Historically, I would say the legendary Buddha or Krishnamurti, whose stuff I like reading, they are successful in the sense that they step out of the game entirely. Winning or losing does not matter to them.
There’s a line from Blaise Pascal I read. Basically, it says: “All of man’s troubles arise because he cannot sit in a room quietly by himself.” If you could just sit for thirty minutes and be happy, you are successful. That is a very powerful place to be, but very few of us get there. [6]
I think of happiness as an emergent property of peace. If you’re peaceful inside and out, that will eventually result in happiness. But peace is a very hard thing to come by. The irony is the way most of us try to find peace is through war. When you start a business, in a way, you’re going to war. When you struggle with your roommates as to who should clean the dishes, you’re going to war. You’re struggling so you can have some sense of security and peace later.
In reality, peace is not a guarantee. It’s always flowing. It’s always changing. You want to learn the core skill set of flowing with life and accepting it in most cases. [8]
You can get almost anything you want out of life, as long as it’s one thing and you want it far more than anything else.
In my own personal experience, the place I end up the most is wanting to be at peace.
Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion. You can convert peace into happiness anytime you want. But peace is what you want most of the time. If you’re a peaceful person, anything you do will be a happy activity.