Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, let's talk about happiness and, like, what gets in the way of it. I really think, you know, life isn't, like, inherently hard, it's more like we make it hard on ourselves, you know? And something I've been really trying to do is get rid of the word "should" from my vocabulary. Because, like, whenever I hear that word, "should," in my head, it's usually, like, guilt or some kind of, you know, societal expectation lurking behind it. If you're doing something because you "should," it probably means you don't really want to do it, and going against what you actually want is, well, it's gonna make you miserable. So I'm trying to, like, minimize the "shoulds" in my life.
And I think what messes with our inner peace, a lot of the time, is just, like, the expectations that society and other people put on us. Society's always telling us, "Go work out! Dress nicely!" It's, like, this big multiplayer game where we're constantly being judged on how well we're doing. Or, "Go make money! Buy a big house!" Another external, multiplayer game, where everyone's, you know, judging each other.
But actually building happiness, that's totally internal. Like, no one else needs to validate your progress or, you know, acknowledge your results. It's just you versus you. It's a single-player game.
The thing is, humans are social creatures, right? Just like bees or ants. We follow certain social rules, and we're driven by social feedback. And the result of that is we've kind of forgotten how to play, or even win, these single-player games. We're, like, totally engrossed in these multiplayer competitions.
But the truth is, life is a single-player game. You're born alone, you die alone, and you interpret everything, all of existence, by yourself. Your memories are only yours. Nobody cared before you were born, nobody's gonna care after you're gone. You're here for, like, a few decades, it's a solo journey.
You know, maybe that's why things like yoga and meditation are so hard to stick with. Because they're just about your inner self, there's no external validation, it's just a pure single-player game.
Warren Buffett, he asked this really interesting question, like, would you rather be the worst lover in the world but feel like the best, or be the best lover in the world according to everyone else, but feel like the worst? That kind of gets to the heart of it, that there are, like, these two sets of standards, internal and external.
And the main point is that all the true standards are internal. One thing that really messes with that is jealousy. I used to be, like, super jealous when I was younger. But as I got older, I started to get over it, although, you know, it still creeps up sometimes. It's just such a destructive emotion. Because at the end of the day, it doesn't really improve your life, it just makes you unhappy. And the person you're jealous of? Well, they're still successful, beautiful, whatever you're envious of. They still have the thing that you covet.
But then, one day, I realized, like, I was only jealous of, you know, certain aspects of other people. And I can't just have those aspects. I can't just want their body, or their wealth, or their personality. If I wanted to trade lives, I'd have to take their whole life, you know? The reactions, the desires, the family, the happiness, the worldview, the self-image, everything. Could I accept that? And if I'm not willing to do a complete one-for-one swap, then jealousy just doesn't make any sense.
And as soon as I realized that, the jealousy just, like, vanished. Because I didn't want to be anyone else. I'm happy being me. And, you know, even that, even just being happy being yourself, that's within my control, even though society, well, it's not gonna give me any awards for it.