[Off-Topic] Carpe Diem and the Myths of Happiness

“But what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.” - Don Draper

One of the great myths of modern society, perpetuated by a torturous daily repetition on social media, is the false “goal” of the “pursuit of happiness.”

On top of that we also have the myth of “motivation”. TL;DR: motivation is overrated, far more than it actually deserves.

“People have two ways of thinking, she says. Those with a ‘fixed mindset’ believe that their talents or abilities are set in stone. Those with a ‘growth mindset’ believe their talents and abilities can be developed. Fixed mindsets see every conflict as a test of their worth. Growth mindsets see those same conflicts as opportunities to improve.” - Daniel H. Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

And to make it worse, the repeated mantra of “do what you love” which, as I discussed back in 2014, is a petty way of devaluing other people’s work.

“…, the big problem with the ’love what you do’ narrative is that it’s tied to a discourse of happiness that means ‘being on top of the rollercoaster all the time.’ As if a normal, day-to-day, routine life couldn’t be a life of satisfaction. All of that makes this scenario worrying.” - Bárbara Castro - “5 Reasons why ‘do what you love’ isn’t the solution”

In our small big world of tech, this leads many people to conclude: “I’m going to work at a startup or start my own,” which by itself obviously isn’t wrong, but reaching that conclusion motivated by the previous myths is a huge source of unnecessary frustration, as I already explained in 2013.

“I won’t mince words: I’m deeply skeptical of this system. I’m skeptical of the slavery of this system, the self-congratulatory fetishization of ‘disruption’ while at the same time becoming so obviously the kind of impassive institution it wants to replace. I’m skeptical of the short-term vision of the startup community. And I’m particularly skeptical of its disregard for the lives of the people who participate in it and the lives of those who live in the world startups seek to reshape. Let’s not even get started on the collusion, cartelization, and other market-corruption activities that are so common in the VC world. The point being: it’s a bad game, and a fraudulent one.” - Alex Payne

And to make everything worse, there’s a “consensus” on social media that the world keeps getting worse. Everything today is worse. People are worse. Jobs are worse. The environment is destroyed. Everything offends everyone all the time and nobody can stop judging others all the time.

And I disagree, as I’ve explained back in 2013 and repeat every year: the world is better, constantly improving, and the future will be even better! I’d like to take this chance to honor one of the men who helped change my perspective on the world, the recently deceased Dr. Hans Rosling.

The Perpetuation of the Myths

There’s no shortage of books, talks, TV shows, movies, and everything else built around the idea that everyone “Must” be happy, all the time. And that if you’re not happy, you’re doing something very wrong. The relentless pursuit of and obsession with “ideal happiness” has become one of the most unhealthy and cruel things of the past 2 centuries — alongside the excessive consumption of sugar, but that’s another subject, although sugar and happiness tend to be correlated.

There are 2 concepts everyone needs to understand:

1. You probably don’t have depression. These days everyone “is depressed” — obviously, because “figuring out what you love to do” takes a lot of work and brings a lot of “suffering”…

No, you’re just bored, momentarily.

Saying “I’m depressed” instead of “I’m bored” has become so common that the actual clinical condition needs another name to differentiate itself, “Major Depressive Disorder”, which is a medical condition, really too serious to be treated with such inconsideration.

2. Normally, even after going through events we consider very bad, or very good, we tend to return to the same level of “happiness” (or boredom) we were at before those events. This is called the “Hedonic Treadmill”. And it’s the main reason why the “pursuit of happiness” is a particularly cruel journey, because if you don’t understand it, you’ll live in constant frustration.

“When enough is not enough, a hedonist is born.” - Sukant Ratnakar

Have you ever thought “I’ll finally be happy when I get married.” Or “if I get this job, I’ll feel completely satisfied.” Or maybe you relate more to the other side of the coin: “I’ll never be happy now that I got this medical diagnosis.” Or “I can’t be happy while I have to pay these debts.” Psychological research has revealed two important findings when it comes to these beliefs: The things we think will make us happy never make us happy for as long as we imagine. At the same time, negative life events and challenges don’t have a lasting impact on our happiness either, as we believe they would. - Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D - The Myths of Happiness

“We seem obsessed with motivation, marching toward something beyond the life we have right now, and we treat that motivation as if it were a big part of the story of wisdom, which it isn’t.” - Jennifer Hecht - The Happiness Myth: The Historical Antidote to What Isn’t Working Today

Because of Hedonic Adaptation, every change, any change, seems to provide new “motivation,” it feels like “we’ve finally locked onto the right path.” Unless the change brings a new purpose, it’s simply more of the same. Very soon we get used to the “new normal” and we’ll be back to boredom. And without understanding this, you’ll always be in the endless, unsatisfying cycle of “the grass is always greener on the other side.”

Now, the most nefarious part of the direct effects of all these myths is when people blame others for their own problems. “I can’t because my husband…”, “I can’t because my family…”, “I can’t because my coworkers…”, “I can’t because my boss…”, “I can’t because society…”

At this point you’re lost. You want changes, but you want everything around you to change, except yourself, which is the best definition of a coward: those who live on superficial justifications and excuses to avoid effort, to avoid pain, to maximize their short-term pleasure. It’s the behavior of drug addicts, and judging everything and everyone is their drug.

Only you are destined for great things, but something or someone is holding you back. Only you are special. Only you deserve special treatment. Once upon a time, we’d politely call this “immaturity,” “childishness.” Today I’d say most people actually fit into “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”.

“Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism … (this) causes problems in many areas of life, such as relationships, work, school or financial affairs. You may be unhappy and disappointed when you’re not given the special favors or admiration you believe you deserve. Others may not enjoy being around you, and you may find your relationships unfulfilling.” - Mayo Clinic

In the modern world, I’d reduce this to the “Like Culture.” Sad.

Conclusion

This relentless pursuit of “ideal happiness,” “doing only what you love,” and thinking “the world is going to end” makes people very weak, with low self-esteem, low empathy, very high narcissism, and a sense of “depression” that ends up paralyzing them and making them simply lash out in every direction because of the lack of “purpose” and constant frustration with everything and everyone.

Fortunately, I never had this problem — I’ve only known people who do, and this article is dedicated to them, as a “wake up call.” That doesn’t mean I haven’t had my unhappy moments and personal crises. I’ve lost a lot, financially, personally. Businesses, friends, relationships. I’m not exaggerating. But I accept my losses and I pay for them, as part of life: No Pain, No Gain.

A “fancy” work environment was never a concern. I once worked under a tarp (!) when they were painting the small office where I was an intern, in summer, with no air conditioning, because they were going to throw a party but the work couldn’t stop. I worked inside the environment of a logistics warehouse, with a zinc roof, only with a fan and with trucks coming in and out next to me. I slept on the office floor dozens of times. I carried furniture down the middle of the street to move offices. I pulled many unpaid all-nighters. I got chewed out for things that weren’t even my responsibility (I was an intern). I had to do all kinds of things unrelated to my real job, fight with managers, fight with “coworkers,” fight with vendors.

I never considered any of this “the end of the world.” Just something inevitable. The famous “accept it, it hurts less.”

It’s no accident that I’m an Engineer. Engineers solve problems — our obsession is always finding a more efficient way to do the same thing. No engineer ever solved anything just by whining.

There’s no such thing as “work that devalues me.” If I have to crop a Photoshop, I’m not going to think it’s useless manual labor. There’s no useless work. There’s bad will. All “ordinary,” underestimated work, done with your head engaged, can lead to great accidental discoveries.

“The inventor of Coca-Cola wasn’t a great businessman, a candy seller, or a dreamer looking to revolutionize the beverage industry. John Pemberton just wanted a cure for headaches. A pharmacist by profession, Pemberton used two ingredients he thought would cure the headache: coca leaves and kola nuts. When his lab assistant accidentally mixed the two with carbonated water, the result was the first Coca-Cola.” - 10 Awesome Accidental Discoveries

Many of these narcissists, in their aura of self-importance, believe they need the perfect environment, that conditions to achieve great things must be given to them (emphasis on “given” because they refuse to earn what they need on their own). That’s a load of nonsense. I’ve yet to see anyone who thinks that way achieve anything of relevance to anyone.

In my experience, all the great discoveries had humble conditions but had people who had real interest in what they were doing — only that. Professionals — “craftsmen” — interested in perfecting their own knowledge, and as a consequence, came out with great things that benefited more people. You don’t plan something revolutionary or innovative: those happen by accident — given the ideal conditions of temperature and pressure at that moment.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.” - by Akita.

I am not a programmer with the goal of one day surpassing Bill Gates or Linus Torvalds or anything like that. You don’t need to be blindly arrogant to do something. 30 years in, I still have fun with trivial things: a new piece of code that compiles, a new configuration that optimizes my GPU, configuring a Raspberry Pi, testing a new language, configuring my text editor, researching, learning, evolving, and so on. “Doing what you love” isn’t doing grandiose things. And “being happy” isn’t a constant, unchanging state to be reached. It’s a process, trial and error.

And only those who enjoy the present, what exists around them and within their reach right now — instead of wasting time thinking about “what if in the future…” — are the ones with the best chance of doing what others can’t, blinded by the journey of impossible happiness. Constraints lead to Innovation, as I’ve been repeating for years.

“carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” - “Make the most of the (limited) time you have”.

“Whoever lives in the past is a museum. And whoever suffers over the distant future is mentally ill.” - Unknown.

Coincidentally, while I was researching for this post, the Hipsters Ponto Tech podcast came out where I made a small appearance precisely to talk about the topic of Careers in tech.

And reread my old posts mentioned above, related to these topics:

• The World Today Is Very Good! Happy 2013!
• Letter to a Young Programmer Considering a Startup
• Constraints are liberating: less is more
• Don’t Do What You (“THINK”) You Love

TL;DR: Learn how to learn, and make better use of your life.