Why am I not happy?
If I asked you to make a list of everything you have ever achieved in your life, how big would that list be? Do any of those things on your list make you proud? Have you forgotten about how significant some of those things were?
Comparison is the thief of joy. Comparison is necessary for growth. Comparison is biological. We compare to find a mate which is best suited for us. I think as the world has become more “rich” and we have become more “free” it has also become more confusing to find a partner. There are a lot of things to think about now. How does this person look? What is their personal hygiene like? Are they vegan? Are they mature? Rich? Nice car? Nice person? Good with kids? Will they protect me? Will they make a nice sandwich? The list goes on.
Comparison is necessary but the comparison is the reason that no matter how big the achievement or how successful we become, it never feels as good as you think it should. We are constantly comparing ourselves to our friends, family and people around us. This is fine when the people we are comparing to are real-life people, but now we have social media and influencers, we are comparing ourselves to billboards. Influencers are billboards, they are advertisements, they are selling themselves to companies, they are selling views, likes, and eyes. “If you are not paying for a product, you are the product.” Comparing yourself to a billboard or an airbrushed magazine model used to seem absurd, but we do it every time we open our phone and use it as a thumb treadmill. Jordan Peterson said it best, “Compare Yourself To Who You Were Yesterday, Not To Who Someone Else Is Today.”
Now, the fact that men landed on the moon, (or did they? *Plays twilight zone theme music*)
is a brilliant example of what it means to be human. To go where no man has gone before. To constantly want to improve. We are always looking for the next thing, never satisfied. First the moon, now Mars, and soon the whole solar system. The pursuit for something more keeps us relevant, it keeps us current, and it keeps us from falling behind. Just ask your grandparents to use your iPhone, it will be almost impossible, and that’s what happens if you don’t stay current, you fall behind. Think of it as inflation for humans, not like Aunt Marg, more like a Pokemon levelling up. We have to grow in order to work. If you have ever spoken to someone who has given up on life it can seem extremely bleak, like drinking stagnant water. Staying in the same place is not natural, it’s not good for us, it’s poison. We have to keep moving. I have hit rock bottom in my life and I couldn’t see a way out, or a way for my life to improve, for me to get better. But if you keep moving you will progress, you will change and you will grow.
There have been so many times in my life, however, where I thought my happiness would come from something. I thought buying that motorbike, passing that course, earning X amount of money - All of that would make me happy. And it would for a while. But all of the other stressors and struggles in life would still be there, and all of the things I still didn’t have. I may have bought the bike, but now I need the car. “No not that car, a nice car, a fast car, a car which is better than anyone else’s”.
We achieve something and forget about it almost instantly, once the novelty has worn off and it has become the “norm” it becomes something that we did achieve, not something that we still credit to our current selves. Yet when other people achieve something, we credit them with always having achieved that thing.
When a child learns to brush his/her teeth on his own, without getting into a fight with their sibling or stabbing themselves with the toothbrush, that is a huge achievement. Well done. And we will think this child is amazing, she/he can brush their own teeth. Think of all the time that will save us. Or when a family member gets a promotion, they have now got to that role and we give them credit. “Regional manager looks good on you”.
I sat there and reflected on my life and all the people I compared myself to, I listed off all of my problems, and then I gave reasons why my friends were doing better than me. “I know I’m doing really well with my studying, but that person has their own house, I should be where they are.” At the same time, that person is thinking “I know I have my own house, but I feel like I’m not going anywhere if only I did a college course to give me more money”.
Our success is temporary because there is always something else to achieve and I do not think that’s a bad thing. The bad thing is that in the pursuit of excellence, we risk burning the bridge we just walked across. What is the point in achieving anything if we aren’t going to be satisfied with the results? We seem to discredit our old selves for not being able to achieve something sooner when we didn’t have the prerequisites needed to do that.
“We don’t make the most of the sunrise, we are too busy looking for the sunset”
I’m not going to sit here and act like I haven’t posted a photo of a sunrise, but come on, it's just business baby. I am just wondering why I didn’t enjoy it more at the time? It could be because, we have instant access to anything we want, which makes us less patient. I’m not sure, it could just be human nature. So I’m wondering what can we do to make the special moments more special? Memories seem to be better than the real thing sometimes. Maybe when we look back at our memories we create a story that is far more elaborate and exciting than it actually was. Memories are strange, they aren’t there to show us the past, they are there to stop us from getting hurt. If you climb a tree and get bitten by a snake, you aren’t going to want to go into that tree again. You can remember the pain and remember not to do that again.
So how do we make the most of those special moments? Well, every exchange has a price. We place value on everything. The money we spend on a meal out is all dependent on the quality of the food, and what we rate it. We buy phone insurance because we put value into it. I’d pay someone to paint our house because I see value in saving myself time even tho it costs me money.
I think one of the best ways you can make each one of your successes last forever is to see the value within it. In order for you to see value in something, it first has to line up with the things you value. If you don’t think there is value in doing something, you wouldn’t pay for it.
So I think one of the ways to feel satisfied and content with what you have is to understand its value, in relation to you and your life. I train for 2 hours a day because it makes me feel better, it gives me time to focus on myself, challenge myself and to be present. It is invaluable to me. I see huge value in all that training gives me, physically and mentally.
The reason buying a new car as a “reward” or getting extra money in your pay packet each month doesn’t feel you with long term satisfaction is because it doesn’t align with your values. We get sucked into thinking we need to have stuff, cars, watches, houses, fucking NFT’s. All of this is like our social currency to show we are wealthy and we have succeeded. But these things are not what truly make us feel satisfied. Normally if there is something you achieve and you see value in it, you will feel satisfied for much longer.
I have a Harley Davidson, it is my pride and joy, I love it. When I bought that I didn’t think of it as a badge of honour, but I thought people are gonna be so jealous of what I have got. At the time I was 21, what 21 year old do you know who has a Harley? No one! That thought right there drove me to buy a Harley on finance, which cost me a lot of stress financially over the years and ended up with me paying £2,000 more than it was worth. All because I wanted validation.
Validation is one of the biggest drivers of human behaviour. Why we do a lot of things is to be accepted by our peers or accepted by our parents.
We are constantly looking for validation, to fit in. And that is why a lot of our achievements only last a couple of days, hours or minutes. We were never doing it for us, never doing it for what we really wanted, we were doing it for external validation.
It has to be something we value, even if you twist the narrative to make it align with something you see value in then great, at least there is a reason for achieving it that you truly believe in.
I think we have to understand what we value, we have to understand who we are. Then we need to align everything to achieve that goal. Too many times do we bend who we are to fit the mould, and too many times people change who they are, to prove in some messed up way, that they are unique. When in reality it is still a way to try and fit in, still a way to be accepted and get validation from other people. I think knowing who we are, or at least what we want and what we value, then aligning the stars to add to that value will be the best way to feel content with everything you do in life.
