When I worked with teenagers in wilderness
therapy, I would often ask them the question "What do you want from life?" The vast majority
of them would say something along the lines of "I just want to be happy." Many of them had put loads
of work into that desire. They sought happiness in friendships and in drugs. They looked for pleasure
in dangerous behaviors and sexual exploits. They tried to escape pain through smoking pot
or avoiding school or family. And, you know, they hated their parents for trying to stop them
from enjoying life. The harder they tried to feel happy, the more miserable their lives became. In
America there's a constant pressure to feel happy all the time. Maybe it's because the pursuit
of happiness is written into our constitution. But somehow this is warped into a mixture of
using happiness to sell product and a sense of shame for not feeling happy all the time - you
know, this idea of "You're not feeling happy? What's wrong with you?" Research shows that the
more pressure we put on ourselves to feel happy, the worse people feel. On a side note, making
people feel miserable but promising them happiness if they buy your products happens to sell more
products. People who try to live up to society's expectations of happiness tend to feel worse
in comparison to people who focus their lives on their purpose, their values, and
their meaning. Today we're going to look at one way we can create a good life
without becoming obsessed with happiness. First I just want to take a moment to mention
today's sponsor. This video is sponsored by BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy
provider that will connect you with licensed therapists in your state so that you can talk with
them through video chats or through messaging or in other ways. And you can get help from a
licensed professional from the comfort of your own home. One of the things I love about
BetterHelp is that it's really accessible, it's easy to use, and it's quite affordable. So
if you'd like to learn more, check out the link in the description for 10% off your first month.
In my humble, and perhaps pessimistic, opinion, we've been duped into thinking that happiness is
the goal of life. Happiness may be the outcome of a good life, but if you put all your efforts
into happiness, you may end up feeling miserable. People who live rich and fulfilling lives focus
on their purpose and their direction - their values - instead of putting all their
effort into feeling happy. Check out this comic: I am not a happy person. When I tell
people this, they infer that I am unhappy. They assume my status is binary: either
I'm a joyous triumph or I'm a miserable wretch. They recognize no spectrum, only
two states of being: happy and unhappy. But I've never felt happy. I've felt joy. I've
felt bliss. But those feelings are ephemeral. Being happy implies permanence. It implies
you completed all the prerequisites, and now you get to sit atop your giant pile of happy
forever. Yay! It implies you won, you beat the boss, you made it. "I just want you to be happy."
You're a triumph, you're incredible, you're whole. When I disparage this idea of happiness,
the counter-argument is always the same: "Oh, I know, it's all about the journey."
But that's not it either. The conversation about the journey is always coupled with
the idea that the journey is a joyous one, rich with smiles and fun and laughter.
Also, journeys require endpoints. Otherwise, you're not Frodo; you're just a homeless
guy wandering around with stolen jewelry. The problem with happy is a lot like the problem
with Pluto. I'm skipping this part. You guys should go to his website to read the rest of the
article. Our sense of happiness is so brittle it can be destroyed simply by asking whether or not
it exists. "Hello, strange creature. What are you doing?" "I'm SlargNakking." "What's SlargNakking?"
"Well, I take these Blorks, and I plug them into the Klall, like this. And if I arrange them
in a certain way, they all start lighting up." It's beautiful." Thank you." "How long have you
been doing this?" "My entire life." "Does it make you Glorkappy?" "Glorkappy?" "Yeah, Glorkappy.
It's when you generally feel good all the time. You smile a lot because you're fulfilled." Oh, I
don't know. I just like SlargNakking. Sometimes my arms hurt from lifting these, and sometimes
I get frustrated, but I find it meaningful, I guess. I never really thought about it until now.
I guess I'm not all that Glorkappy. I guess I'm UnGlorkappy." "That's too bad. It really is
beautiful, though. "Thank you." Frowny face. "Maybe I'm just built differently.
Maybe I was born anxious and angry, and this is how I find peace with the
universe. Maybe I truly am miserable, and everyone else is feeling something I'm not.
Or maybe they're all full of crap. It's irrelevant because I'm not happy, and I don't pretend to be.
Instead, I'm busy. I'm interested. I'm fascinated. I do things that are meaningful to
me, even if they don't make me happy. I run. I run 50 miles at a time. I run over
mountains until my toenails fall off. I run until my feet bleed and my skin burns
and my bones scream. I read. I read long, complicated books about very smart things, and I
read short, silly books about very stupid things. I read until their stories are more fascinating
to me than the people actually around me. I work. I work for 12 hours a day. I work
until I can't think straight and I forget to feed myself and the light outside dims
to a tired glow. I work until I smell weird. When I do these things, I'm not smiling or beaming
with joy. I'm not happy. In truth, when I do these things I'm often suffering. But I do them because
I find them meaningful. I find them compelling. I do these things because I want to be tormented
and challenged and interested. I want to build things and then break them. I want to be busy
and beautiful and brimming with ten thousand moving parts. I want to hurt so that I can heal.
I'm not unhappy; I'm just busy. I'm interested, and that's okay." If you like
this, you can get his book. I really think there are some people who can or
do feel happy much of the time, but they aren't struggling to feel this way. And for the rest of
us, struggling to feel that way often makes us feel worse. That comic was based off the article
by Augustine Burroughs. He starts off with "I just want to be happy. I can't think of another phrase
capable of causing more misery and permanent unhappiness - with the possible exception of
'Honey, I'm in love with your youngest sister.' In our super positive society, we have a
zero-tolerance policy for negativity, but who feels great all the time? Yet at first glance,
it seems so guileless. Children just want to be happy. So do puppies. Happy seems like a healthy,
normal desire. Still, this recipe of defining happiness and fiddling with your life to get it
will work for some people but not for others. I am one of the others. I am not a happy person."
Now, this is all quoting from this article. "I am not a happy person. There are things that do make
me experience joy, but joy is a fleeting emotion, like a very long sneeze. A lot of the time what
I feel is interested. Or I feel melancholy. And I also frequently feel tenderness, annoyance,
confusion, fear, hopelessness. It doesn't all add up to anything I would call happiness. But what
I'm thinking is "Is that so terrible?" I know a physicist who loves his work. People mistake
his constant focus and thought with unhappiness. But he's not unhappy; he's busy. I bet when
he dies there will be a book on his chest. Happiness is a treadmill of a goal for people
who are not happy by nature. Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You
can be interested instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy. The barrier to this,
of course, is that in our super positive society, we have an unspoken zero-tolerance policy for
negativity." He continues by explaining how his life is good, but that thinking "I just want to
be happy tends to make him feel more miserable." Now, I don't necessarily agree with everything he
says, but I do think that seeking positive emotion and avoiding negative emotion is a trap. Both of
these lead to rumination or seeking the next high, seeking the next, you know, transient feelings of
of pleasure. Happiness is a good thing, but trying to feel it all the time makes you feel worse. I
and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy propose a radical alternative to seeking happiness: to make
your life about your direction and your purpose instead. To allow yourself to feel all the
feelings, and to put your energy towards something else. A rich and fulfilling life is more likely
to be found when your life has a purpose. What beauty are you creating with your life? What
good are you doing in the world? What are you building? What are you making? A self-centered,
hedonistic drive toward feeling good tends to lead to loneliness and misery. When we center our
lives on our purpose, on what's meaningful to us, and when we move in that direction, we tend to be
joyful. When I use the word joy, I mean a lasting appreciation of the beauty of life; of fulfilling
relationships, even when they include pain; of seeing and appreciating and creating goodness
and abundance rather than demanding happiness. I can find joy in a long and painful hike or a
freezing cold wind, but that doesn't mean that it's fun or comfortable. It might be, but joy
is bigger than comfort. Same thing with love: we can create love by reaching out to others,
but to risk loving also risks hurting. But to not risk loving guarantees hurting. We create love by
reaching out to others. So going back to my years in wilderness treatment, it was really interesting
for me to watch these teens in the desert, right? Their circumstances were difficult. We hiked
long miles, we slept under tarps, we ate simple foods cooked over a fire. They had no drugs
or sweet foods or cell phones or video games. But as the weeks went on, something bright
inside of them began to glow. They would feel a sense of awe in an amazing sunrise, or they'd get
excited about their most recent cooking invention involving flour and dried beans, or they'd laugh
their head off playing a game of stickball. And as they spent time in the quiet nature,
they started to see their life from a broader perspective. They cared about the group of kids
they were with. They talked about their future. And the way they talked started to change.
They began to talk about helping others, or they'd talk about their little brother. They
opened up and talked about trauma and philosophy, and they'd tell stories, and we'd have the most
amazing like group discussions under the stars. And then one day their parents would come to
visit, and a surprising majority of them would run to their parents and hug them and
cry with joy to see their mom and dad. These were the same parents that only weeks
earlier they'd been cursing. And even though their faces were filthy, their eyes would shine
with excitement and with joy for life. If you asked them if they were happy out there, I doubt
many of them would say yes. But if you asked them if it was worth it, many of them would say it
was the best experience of their life so far. And just in case you're wondering, I do feel happy
some of the time. And other times I feel lots of intense emotions, whether it's, you know, crying
in therapy with a client or feeling stressed about the next YouTube video. But for me, that's all
good. My life is about doing good in the world. And so I I love it, this whole experience that
I'm having. So tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? What do you
want your life to be about? Your mortal life is just a short blip in eternity, but it matters
what are you going to put your energy towards. For this week's assignment, I want you to go
to a cemetery and walk through the headstones. As Robin Williams says in Dead Poets' Society:
"Soon, boys, you'll all be fertilizing daffodils. Carpe diem." At the cemetery, look at
what people chose to be remembered by. Some of them are remembered by sports, others by hobbies.
Some focus on their families or their beliefs. Take your journal and write about
what you want your life to be about. Is there anything you need to change about your
direction and priorities to make that happen? If you look at the big picture of your life,
does that help you change your perspective on the momentary challenges of the now? In the next
episode, we're going to talk about how you can define your values - the things that matter
the most to you - and how you can use those to overcome challenges like depression and anxiety.
Thank you for watching, and take care. This video is one skill from my 30-skill course How to
Process Your Emotions, where I teach 30 of the most essential skills for resolving depression,
anxiety, and improving mental health. Emotion processing is an essential skill for working
through intense emotions, but most people have never been taught how to do it. I'm putting every
single main video lesson on YouTube for the world to access for free. You watching these videos,
sharing them, contributing to my Patreon and my sponsors make this possible. If you would like
to access the entire course in one place ad free with its workbook, exercises, downloads, extra
videos, live Q&A's, additional short readings, and links to extended resources, the link to
buy the course is in the description below.