Super Mario Life — A Recipe for Happiness

If you’re like me, you’re constantly searching for happiness. Trying to improve your life, feel better, be more healthy, stress less, have better relationships and so on. The hunt is never-ending and that sense of true bliss is very elusive.

Regretfully, society tends to give us the wrong recipe for happiness. Already in early childhood, we are taught to aim for success. We learn to chase social status and money, and that leads many of us to believe that those things will make us happy. And they will, but only to a certain extent and only in the form of momentary spikes. We need something else to reach the lasting blissful state we are actually looking for.

So, what can give us that type of deeper happiness? Well, I’ve come up with a simple way of looking at it. I look at my happiness as based on two simple notions:

1. What we call happiness, is actually manifested in the human brain as a state of optimal levels of certain chemicals — primarily dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. The right levels of these chemicals will make us feel happy, while lower levels will make us feel unhappy.
2. If we learn how to control the levels of these chemicals in our brains, we can control our own happiness. Simple as that.

So, how do we learn how to control the chemicals in our brains? It is actually quite easy, but before I give you my method for it, I’d like to point out that these mood-swinging chemicals are also responsible most of human addictions. When we get addicted to gambling, sex, drugs, social media or working out — it is simply because those things bring us chemical kicks that we don’t get in other parts of our lives. As an example, when we get a new friend request on social media, our dopamine levels tend to increase by 400%. No wonder many of us are glued to our phones. At the core, we are nothing but dopamine-, oxytocin- and serotonin junkies, and we need to understand that our addiction to these chemicals can be harmful at times.

That said, a healthy dose of these chemicals is also the foundation for happiness. And in my case, I’ve realised that my way to keep track of my daily happiness dosage comes through gamification — or what I like to call the Super Mario Life! This simple idea lets me get a hold of my own happiness by thinking of life as a game of Super Mario Bros.

Here’s how my gamified Super Mario life works:

1. Identify your collectibles!
These are any activities, people, places, things, thoughts or behaviours which increase your levels of dopamine, serotonin or oxytocin in healthy ways. As you go through your day, try to collect as many of these as you can!

In my case, I have identified four different types of collectibles which give me flow and make me feel great:

• Crew: spending quality time with people I love and/or can learn from. ”Quality time” to me translates to deep honest conversations, physical closeness and the act of giving (as in giving gifts or support to my friends).
• Creating: all forms of creative activities, including creating music, games, startups, books, concepts or simply doodling away on a post-it.
• Mind/body flow: getting “into” my body through yoga, skiing, meditation, soccer, longboarding or similar activities which activate my body and focus my brain.
• Novelty: I love new things, people, places, activities and ideas — and exploring such novelties make me happy.

2. Identify your enemies!
These are any activities, people, places, things, thoughts or behaviours which decrease your levels of dopamine, serotonin or oxytocin, or increase them in unhealthy ways. Try to avoid these in your daily life!

For me, my daily enemies include:

• Addictions: primarily social media, sugar and my ego getting too much attention
• Negativity-biased people: individuals who spread their negativity to others
• Fear: whenever I hold myself back from being my true self, because I’m scared of failure, conflict or being judged.

3. Play your game!
Throughout your day, look for your collectibles and try to avoid your enemies.

4. Check your results!
At the end of each day, tune into your body, soul and emotional state to ”feel” what your end result of the day was. If you feel you didn’t get a perfect happiness score, look back at your day to identify which collectibles you had too few of, and which enemies you had too many of.

5. Keep playing!
The next day, focus on your improvement areas from the previous day. Over time, you’ll get a really good idea of what makes you happy and how to make yourself happy.

This very simple game has helped me immensely in my search for a happier life, and hopefully it will bring you some value as well. If you decide to give it a go, I’d love to hear your results and any suggestions for how to make Super Mario Life even better!

“Thank you so much for-to-playing my game!”