If you want to be fulfilled, don’t do what makes you happy
Do this instead.
There’s a well-known comic writer online called Matthew Inman. If you’ve spent enough time surfing the web, you might known him by his creation, The Oatmeal.
Ever since 2009, he’s been creating wacky and zany comics in his own style. Here’s a couple of his more popular ones:
He’s also known to be a champion of proper grammar…
He’s become an influential force to be reckoned with on social media, creating the most backed project on Kickstarter of all time.
He dedicates his time to creating comics, raising money for charitable causes and living life on his own terms. By many measures, you would say he’s “made it” and that he’s happy.
Not quite…
In one of his most recent comics, he says right at the beginning:
“I am not a happy person.”
In his own unique way, he addresses the problem with the idea of happiness. I’ll go through the main points here, but check out his comic to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.
#1 — happiness isn’t binary.
People think of happiness as being something which you either are or you aren’t.
That’s certainly what we teach our kids from day 1.
We feel:
- happy,
- sad,
- mad,
- scared,
- worried, etc
It’s just easier that way.
Happiness becomes a lot more important when we all become adults.
Happiness becomes the ultimate goal. We are incomplete if we’re not happy. Why does it change? Why does it become so damn important? I still don’t know.
But here’s the key:
Happiness isn’t binary — it’s temporary. It’s a state. We got it right as kids and are completely wrong as adults.
Happiness is fleeting. It is meant to come and go. We are meant to be happy, sad, mad, scared and worried. It’s what makes us painfully human.
Happiness isn’t the complete picture, but it completes the picture.
Stop chasing happiness so much. It just loads you up on more of the heavy, negative stuff.
#2 — It’s not all about the journey.
The journey is another tired cliche that’s often coupled with happiness.
On happiness, people come in two camps:
- it’s the destination, or
- it’s the journey.
People journey through life, trying to reach a destination. It’s either how you feeling while going through the journey, or the holy grail at the end of it.
But it’s neither.
We are sold this idea because it’s what we want to believe about the world.
But we know otherwise.
We know that the ride is bumpier than it should be. We’ll be rejected more times than we can imagine. We’ll give up and restart more times than we care to keep count of.
All for the sake of happiness.
We tell ourselves, just one more try. Just one more call. Just one more step.
All the while we might be walking through white-hot coals through our own personal hell.
It’s completely unhappy — yet we keep doing it. We keep subjecting ourselves to this craziness. It doesn’t make sense.
Why do we do things that make us unhappy?
That leads me onto the next point.
#3 — Fulfillment doesn’t come from happiness, it comes from…
Suffering. Yes, you know, that really painful state.
You might be thinking, “this is nuts. Why would anyone want to intentionally suffer?”
To answer your question, consider the following:
- If ignorance is bliss (happiness), enlightenment is suffering.
There is a lot of bad stuff happening in the world right now. We’re fed a diet of misery through the media.
Sometimes, we have to withdraw ourselves from this diet and consume something wholesome again.
We spend time with family. We reflect. But we don’t grow. With no external stimuli, we have no reason to adapt. If we don’t adapt, we don’t find new ways to get better.
Sooner or later, we have to return to the real world and resume our diet of suffering.
But it’s not all bad. Suffering doesn’t meant necessarily mean depressing news headlines. You can choose your own suffering. Make life 1% harder on yourself and you will grow.
- When we make mistakes, we suffer.
Suffering is about learning. It’s about experimentation. It’s about bleeding and gnashing your teeth.
It’s about making mistakes.
Happiness often is contentment. It’s hard to make mistakes when you’re happy. When you’re content with life, you’re happy with it “as is”.
You don’t ask yourself, “what if?”
Your risk appetite grows. Your appetite for suffering grows. You become unhappier but you become more fulfilled.
It’s the see-saw of accomplishment. You either choose one or the other.
- But you should choose one AND the other, just not at the same time.
While you do have to make choices, life still isn’t binary. Remember what we said at the beginning?
Some days, you will want to suffer. You will want to spend all day, deep-working on your novel, your book, your writing, your music, your art.
Others, you want to aimlessly walk through the park and forget the troubles of the/your world.
That’s OK. While we all seek fulfillment, we also want to be happy. We can have both — just not at the same time.
It’s your life. It’s up to you how you want to divide it up. How much you want to spend blissfully unaware and how much you want to spend suffering in the name of your work.
You deserve to be happy — but you also deserve to know how to be fulfilled.
