Solving For Happy
Solving For Happy
I used to think that life was some great algebraic equation. Happy was on one side, and on the other some division of time and money. The solution lay somewhere in maximizing the money variable, and utilizing the time variable most effectively. Yet, if half retirement has taught me one thing, it is that solving for happy is not nearly so linear.
Escaping the drudgery of work nor having overfilled coffers has been enough to tip the scales. There are other considerations that still seem rather vague and ephemeral.
The Art of Subtraction
Certainly subtraction is important on the road to contentedness (I still hate the word happy). While getting rid of things won’t create good feelings, it certainly will get rid of bad ones.
Half retirement has certainly proved this. By removing that which I didn’t enjoy in my work environment, I have created a much more rewarding situation. Or at least, less sucky. I still appreciate all the things I liked in my job before, they just come at less of a cost.
Not just at work, but in other venues of life, the same holds true. Letting go of toxic relationships, spending habits, and activities will have a similar effect.
But solving for happy is a little more complicated, subtraction itself won’t create contentedness.
Joyfulness/Peace
I started to meditate regularly. Exercize. Listen to classical music. I could feel my heart rate go down and my breathing steady. Maybe seeking internal solitude was enough. Maybe solving for happy is much more physiologic and less psychologic. It’s all a matter of being in good shape. Or maybe not.
I have become much more calm. Yet no more happy.
So I took up hobbies. I read voraciously. Wrote every morning. Started a podcast and began my career as a public speaker. Each bringing joy for moments at a time. Some of these moments lasting longer than others. Never, however, were they permanent. Each its own little treadmill pushing aggressively for more and not less.
People
In solving for happiness, the most durable solution seems to lie in people. Relationships. The great promise of financial independence is not just the fiscal means to engage in one’s dreams, but also the emotional bandwidth necessary.
I am a better spouse, and father, and son. I have more time and energy for friends and family. I have become a community member, and embrace the social bonds that go along with such membership.
In this, the great algebra of life seems to have revealed itself. Maybe the money doesn’t matter. Maybe the accomplishments are short lived. The goal might just be to change the world a little less, and touch the people who surround you a little more.
This sounds a lot more viable.
Final Thoughts
Solving for happy has been a lifelong puzzle. Neither financial independence nor half retirement have made the answers any more clear. Subtraction, joy, and peace are certainly adding to contentedness.
But I’m starting to think that it is within people and relationships where true happiness resides.
The Declaration of Independence insists that all men are entitled to the “pursuit of Happiness,” not “Happiness.” Maybe they were on to something…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. “
Ha! I typed up my comment this morning but didn’t submit it till now and then I saw yours We are on the same page!!! 😊
I had to remember the first two paragraphs in high school of the D of I. I’ll always remember those lines.
I think we are built from the ground up to not be totally content. The perfectly contented creature doesn’t live very long. Who needs to find food, drink, or shelter when perfectly content right here.
We are driven by our animal brains to seek out more. And so Maybe it’s the pursuit of happiness that brings happiness.
Being meaningfully engaged in an activity that you do well and are recognized for (internally and externally) seems to be hugely important for life satisfaction. That’s mostly the opposite of being at some final destination called happiness.
I think the your last paragraph says it all.
Your problem is you are being defined instead of defining. Your whole life has been about becoming and still is about becoming. Becoming a physician becoming wealthy becoming a pod caster blogger speaker writer, becoming enmeshed in all these relationships. Some super set of these are what defines you but they will never make you happy, they are in fact the treadmill that traps you. You have all your “fears” because the treadmill is all you know and has been the source of your success and not having the treadmill freaks you out. You are not independent. To be independent you have to move from becoming to being. Being is the cost you pay for the decades of becoming. As long as you continue down the road of becoming all of the currency of being will continue to be consumed. There’s only ONE way off the treadmill, get the hell off and go be. Building another treadmill is merely a different means of being constrained and feeling trapped. Once you have actually achieved security, not by some dumb assed formula but in reality, treadmills are a big waste of time IMHO.
The day I retired it was like I pulled off a superhighway after 65 years of going 100 mph. Damn I had to pee! I got on the off ramp and slowed down to 30 then 15 headed in a different direction and the pack drove on. I knew I was never going to be who I once was so I had to be something else. Not become something else but be something else and learn the joy of becoming satisfied in that state of being. I was no longer being defined, I was and am the definer. It’s not algebra and the study of sums, it’s geometry and the study of vectors.
I wonder if I could just be and not strive towards anything. I don’t know if that would feel good either.
You will never know till you try