I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately. I suppose it’s the natural evolution of FIREy life:
- Get a job
- Get out of debt
- Save/invest
- Retire (whatever that means)
- Work on yourself (happiness!)
Of course, we all should be working on happiness all along, but sometimes we get thrown off course with the busyness of life. You can only take so much.
Happiness is a topic I’ve been obsessed with for a while. When I retired waaaaay back in April of 2017, I thought early retirement would make me happy. My life was better, but I wasn’t any happier. (More on that below.)
This post is part 1 of a 3 part series:
- Part 1 (this post): Pondering Happiness
- Part 2 (week of October 16): Happiness Experiments
- Part 3 (week of October 23): How To Be Happy
Pondering Happiness
Disclaimer!: I’m not a psychologist or expert on much of anything. I’m a nerdy, awkward dude who likes to take long walks and think. The words below come from my own thoughts and research. But I find that sometimes its more valuable to come up with your own answers. This exercise forces you to think and experiment and perhaps arrive at a deeper understanding than words from a book.
Happiness Isn’t Simple
If I could explain happiness to you in 3 sentences, I would. Then you could stop reading this blog and get on with your life. There is no simple solution. The complexity of happiness also explains why there are entire sections at the library and bookstores filled with books on the topic.
Consider all of the factors that go into happiness:
- Basic needs: shelter, food
- Health
- Genetic disposition: were you born happy or curmudgeonly?
- Work: do you like your job?
- Relationships: family, friends, community
- Environment: do you like where you live?
- Personal growth
I’ve only scratched the surface.
Thought #1: Happiness is complex with many moving parts and variables. Some of them are in our control. Others, not so much.
Happiness Is Different For Everyone
It was January in Colorado and the winter was bleak and cold. But it was fine because I was in San Diego with the family. We were at Mission Beach at sunset and the day was glorious. It was about 70 degrees and there was a gentle wind blowing off the ocean. The sun was about to dip under the waves. Everyone was content and happy. Almost everyone:
- Me: Daughter, what is wrong? Why are you so unhappy?
- Daughter: I HATE California and I HATE the beach.
- Me: You’d rather be back in Colorado where it’s freezing cold?
- Daughter: YES!!!
That was several years ago, but she still maintains her hatred for the state of California and beaches everywhere.
Thought #2: What gives you joy may be someone else’s nightmare.
Definitions Of Happiness Evolves
When I was 25 and broke and got my first paycheck from my first real job, the first thing I bought with it was a pound of ground beef. In my latter college days, I was probably food insecure. It was hard to pay for stuff with a minimum wage, part-time job. That pound of beef and the sloppy joe sandwiches I made with it made me extremely happy. I remember it like it was yesterday. Now I don’t eat much beef and when I do, is usually isn’t memorable.
Another example is driving. As a kid, I loved getting my license and first car:
Now, driving gives me stress. Everyone is in a hurry and others get mad when you’re not going fast enough for them. Sitting in traffic sucks the life out of you.
Yet another example is cars. As a kid, the idea of owning a ridiculous sports car made me happy. Now, it would just be another object that I’d have to care for, store, and insure. No thanks.
Thought #3: You change and so does your idea of happiness.
You May Not Know What Makes You Happy
I have nothing to sell you. I’m not going to take out ads to promote this blog or FIRE. If you like my words, thank you. If not, here’s something you may like better. Or this. OK, this one is ridiculous, but hilarious.
On the contrary, billions of dollars are spent every year trying to sell you:
- trucks
- beer
- fast food
- clothes
- cruises (*guilty*)
- furniture
- phones
- toilet paper
- monster truck rallies
- shoes
- political views
- vacations
- crypto
- diapers
- lots and lot and lots of other crap you probably don’t need…
The people who create these ads are smart and know how to get you to part with your money. If you watch many of these commercials, they aren’t actually trying to sell you a product. They’re selling you the feeling you will supposedly get when you experience the product:
Thought #4: If you don’t know what makes you happy, many will have ideas for you! You’ve been warned.
You Must Work At Happiness
I quit my job way back in April of 2017. I had assumed on the day that I quit, the skies would part, the sun would come out, and I’d live the rest of my life happily hiking, biking and working on stuff in the garage. Life was certainly better, but I wasn’t any happier. I soon realized that I was relying on an external circumstance to make me happy. Most happiness comes from within.
Thought #5: Happiness just won’t show up. It takes work.
Sometimes You’re In A Rut And Don’t Know It
I spent the past 20 years of my life working on houses. Designing and building structures and spaces is pretty fun. Here’s a deck I built a couple of years ago:
I’m still not done with this house, but getting close.
I took this past summer off. I spent my time on a big road trip, hanging out with my kids, walking 25,000 steps per day, and listening to podcasts at the gym.
When fall rolled around and it was time get back to work on the house, the thought I had was this:
I don’t really want to do this anymore.
It was only after I removed myself from construction for an extended period of time that I realized it was no longer moving my needle.
Thought #6: Don’t get stuck in a rut. Try experiments in life frequently to make sure you’re in a good place. A sabbatical is a great way to facilitate this.
Happiness Is Overrated
Have you read this yet?:
Elon is a complicated human. He’s difficult to get along with and often makes insane proclamations. He’s also a brilliant industrialist who successfully started a rocket company. Very hard. He also kickstarted the switch to electric vehicles by growing Tesla into a mainstream auto company. Even harder according to Elon.
And he’s clearly not a very happy human. However if he was happy, he wouldn’t have accomplished many of the great things he’s done. He’s a bit nuts with very bad ideas sometimes, but the world is a better place because of him.
Thought #7: While the life of Elon Musk isn’t for most of us, emotions can serve to drive us.
Next: Happiness Experiments
Next week, I’ll report back on some happiness experiments. One of them involved driving this thing around southern California:
Another involved a dinner at a Michelin star restaurant.
The Corvette was interesting. The food, not so much.
Tune in next week for the juicy details.
More 1500 Days!!!
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Hi Carl, thanks for your thoughts about happiness. I feel that happiness is very much a mindset. Going through life with a positive attitude and by default expecting good things to happen (instead of worrying too much) definitely helps. I feel better myself, others react to a positive person in a nicer way, which improves my life again, because I might get help for whatever I might need or do. It is like a positive spiral. Of course there are more factors that I can‘t control, but I choose to be happy. Sunny regards from Germany, Sarah
I agree that mindset is a big deal. However, that takes work, at least for me. I have to remind myself frequently that everything usually works out for the best.
I love the “positive spiral.” It’s a good way to go through life.
Thanks for reading!
Although I agree that coming up with your own ideas is very important, I also think that books can give us different ways to look at things, ways we wouldn’t be able to see or experiment with.
A book that changed the way I think about the subject, and that I couldn’t recommend more, is “the happiness trap”
Good luck
Oooh, I just google that book and it looks interesting. I’ll check it out.
That’s so deep. I am liking this series and waiting for more. After reading this beautiful post, I am thinking:
Happiness is to experiment with life until you find the next one.
Thank you Carl.
I will have to add the elon book you mentioned. I thought the jobs book was probably my all time favorite read. I don’t really aspire to be driven like they are but it fascinates me to read about people that are so driven even after they have already attained so much. I’m reading a slightly different book on SBF. It is also an amazing read into his thought process. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.
This happiness topic is really interesting to me. I feel like I’m generally a happy person, but lately the mid life crisis thing is becoming real. I don’t want a young GF (which is good since I’m happily married) or a corvette but the pressures of kids leaving the nest at the same time as aging parents with medical issues seems unrelenting.
Is the world a better place because of Elon Musk? There’s a doctoral thesis for someone!
Those car commercials in December always make me laugh. If I ever bought my wife a car without discussing it I’d be spending some time enjoying the outdoors…or possibly exploring the bottom of a lake.
Haha! You have a good wife! As long as she doesn’t take you out someday!
I’m enjoying this series and your deep dive into spending and happiness in general, including the appearance on Sethi’s podcast where I previously shared my thoughts.
One thing that has been occurring to me: I see a lot of people who have achieved FIRE say that it’s not the end all, be all, and that the search for happiness begins at that point. It reminds me of something I have heard from black belts in martial arts — that it’s not the end goal, but the where the real learning starts.
But I don’t know, I think many who are writing this maybe forgot what it was like in the working world and what that chronic stress does to a person. For instance, I do everything all the sleep experts tell us, but the one thing that seems to help me sleep well is either a long vacation (haven’t had one in a while) or a relatively stress-free period at work.
While I think it’s mistaken to aim to achieve independence just to not do something, and that people should have something they want to focus on in retirement/independence, I wonder if it undersells independence to minimize the impacts to happiness or well-being (or contentedness — all these terms have nuanced differences and levels of importance that could be an entire post itself). To me, reducing stress and suddenly having a lot more time for your friends and relationships seems like an enormous benefit. Even if to take advantage of that, you still have to engage with something that’s dressed in overhauls and looks a whole lot like work.
Just some thoughts I’m working through as I go on my own journey, which has shifted a bit from FIRE to entrepreneurship. (Still saving more than 50% most months though.) Anyway, I appreciate the series!
If I could define happiness… Doing more of what you want to do and less of what you’re expected to do. I think so many people fake happiness because they think they are supposed to be happy if they have stuff or status. But, in the end everyone just wants to do what they want to do. Like your daughter and the beach, she ‘should’ be happy and most people would ‘expect’ her to be happy, but she wasn’t. She wanted to do what she wanted to do.
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Yep. It’s that inner v. outer scorecard. Too many pay attention to the latter.
It has taken me a long time to figure out, but just going for a long walk every day makes me happy. Just being outside is great. The simple answer isn’t obvious and doesn’t seem like it should be right, but often it is.