Happiness Is Not The Answer

If I truly did “what makes me happy,” I would eat a megabowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with a Chipotle spoon all damn day, until I fell asleep and woke up thrilled by the opportunity to do the exact same thing again.

I’m serious. I’d invite over all my ice cream-loving friends to sit around, watch old westerns, gorge on some cream, and we’d do nothing but inhale, shoveling frozen sugar into ourselves, vacuuming it up religiously.

Ice cream has never wronged me. I love it. I can eat endless amounts and never get sick, a brain freeze, or have any short-term consequence. It’s like a superpower. If I ate ice cream all day, every day, I’d be really happy. 

I’d also be fat as hell after a month.

“Do what makes you happy” is not bad advice, but it’s incomplete. Happiness is a fleeting emotion, and doing what makes you happy in the moment is not always best for you.

Sure, I could do heroin right now, and it would make me happy. But what about tomorrow?

Instead, you should do what is best for you.

Reframing the question allows you to focus not on what would make you happy, but what would make you better. And being better will make you happy, in the long-run.

What is best for me? That’s for you to determine, based on your goals and who you want to be.

Want to be a professional athlete? Eating ice cream every night may bring you momentary joy, but it won’t do you any good after five minutes when the thrill is gone. 

Want to be a great father? Playing golf until the sun sets and slamming brews at the bar every day would be fun, but your kids would never see you. 

Want to get promoted? You should probably show up to work and do what’s expected of you, although it may be a jolly little activity to procrastinate in the back office watching TikToks.

Want to pay the bills stress-free? You might feel cool when you upgrade your car, but that satisfaction will be gone as soon as you realize you’re out of money. 

This is what happens when people cheat on their wives or husbands; they think it will make them happy. Chances are, it will make them happy. It‘s fun, exciting, dangerous, she can fill the void my wife can’t, we have chemistry, I want to. Then they do it. They’re correct in it being fun and exciting, and incorrect in it being worthwhile. So they get divorced from someone they cared about and loved, and lose all the future joy their marriage would have brought them, and regret ever having desired happiness in the first place. 

You’re not just you now, you’re a series of yous; you’re you today, you tomorrow, next week, for forever as long as you live. Jordan Peterson describes a person as “a community of people stretched out across time.” What you do today, in chasing your own happiness, could seriously injure the community of yous.

Do what is best for you, which is to say: do what brings you meaning and purpose, will continue to do so over time, and will not negatively impact your future self.