Yeahh, so this life thing huh? Lotta work, huh?
I’m getting pretty sick of it at this point, you know?

It takes effort to be happy.
Effort and discipline, damn it.
Like, a lot.

And unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any getting around that.
I don’t think there’s any getting around the hard work part, nor the effort part.
Seems like it takes a lotta effort to get anywhere in life.

What a bummer, eh?
Wouldn’t it be nice to just be a Golden Retreiver some days? To just wake up, nibble on some kibble, take a dump and go to sleep? Gosh, what a life.

Maybe that’s what retirement’s like.

“All the returns in life whether it be in wealth, relationships, etc are from compounding interest”
Naval Ravikant

Quality relationships take effort.
Getting in shape takes effort.
Good health takes effort.
Quality sleep takes effort.
Quality thoughts take effort.
Damn… that’s a lot of effort.

And the more that I think about it, happiness takes effort.

“The first draft of anything is shit.”
Ernest Hemingway

“For every one good page there were 100 bad ones”
Unknown

And man, that’s irritating. Sometimes I wish I could just wake up and be ‘good’. You know? That Golden Retreiver thing I was talking about?

But I don’t think that’s how this Life thing works. Maybe for some… not for most. Everyone is battling demons. Everyone’s dealing with their own baggage or their own bullshit every dang day. We just don’t see it.

“Everyone’s goin’ through somethin’ that nobody knows”
Russ

We don’t see the turmoil, the ups and downs, the emotional rollercoasters. That’s all inside. It’s all in the mind. (RIP Robin Williams)

It’s absolutely bananas to me how powerful our brains are. Two people can experience the exact same thing; one can hate it and one can love it purely based on perspective (closet cleaning sucks, you can’t change my mind)

I guess I wish that we were taught how to make ourselves happy. It’s not rocket science. There is somewhat of a formula to it. The Blue Zones are evidence of that. These people live over 100 years old, and are the places on Earth with the highest average life expectancy.

Some of these cultures don’t quite seem feasible though in our current locations. Cool part is, they’re just comprised of a bunch of habits… and we do have control over those.

The other cool part is, we can reset dopamine levels by doing hard things. It takes a load of effort to get to the point where we enjoy hard things, but certainly still doable.

Andrew Huberman put it brilliantly “pretty soon you’re seeking that distress state as a form of curiosity. As an exploration of who you are an what you’re capable of. It becomes its own form of reward”.

But it takes effort. OH BOY does it take effort.

But somewhere along the way there, we find streams of happiness.

Unfortunately, the English language doesn’t have great language surrounding the concept of Happiness. It’s a fleeting adjective, but also the same word we use to describe an enduring Phase of Life. I fear the 2 are often mixed up. Perhaps periods of joy and well-being could describe it better.

We put in effort, not to be eternally Happy, but to generally feel good.

Meaningful work does that. Being social does that. Sleep does that. Working out does that. Working out our mind and being grateful does that.

“Watch your thoughts because they become your words.
Watch your words because they become your actions.
Watch your actions because they become your character”
-Lao Tzu

In other words… “the quality of your thoughts determine the quality of your life”

There are tangible things we can do to increase our mood, to feel better, to be… happy.

But those things often take a level of commitment, at least in a world that is primarily motivated by making money… rather than enjoying life.

We don’t do these things, these hard things, because they’re fun… We do them for the desired end state. I run because I want to feel good. I eat vegetables because I don’t want my bones to deteriorate. I write because it distills my thoughts.

But I often don’t feel like doing each of those things IN THE MOMENT (link to insta vid). They just make me feel good in the long run.

Even when people talk about ‘Flow State’, when you aren’t thinking, just executing, that feeling of timelessness… all the research I’ve seen indicates it is something you work up to. The beginning is slow and painful.

It takes effort.
It all takes effort.

And I believe that includes Happiness. Happiness takes effort.