Happiness and success are things many of us relentlessly pursue with the belief that these are goals to be achieved. Mountains to be climbed. Achieve happiness by “fixing yourself.” Say the mantras, eventually they’ll become true. Lose the weight, eat healthier, sleep more, more walks in nature, gratitude practices, and do all the other things to get yourself right and healthy, then you’ll be happy. Conquer your flaws and limitations, beat them into submission to make happiness win.
Pursue success with all due diligence. Find your passion, make your work and passions align, hustle for that money, get the degree, get the job, get the house, get the man. Work hard to make it all happen. Make your life picture-perfect and let everyone know how picture-perfect you are, that you have it all together, that you’re happy and successful. Be positive. Eventually you’ll be happy and successful if you stay positive and work hard enough.
It’s not that simple. And I think that mentality of “achieving” happiness and success becomes a trap. That’s not to say you shouldn’t set goals and work hard. Having goals, dreams, and working towards them are valuable. But I think the pursuit of happiness and success as we do it now is dangerous, and in many ways, sets us up for dissatisfaction and exhaustion. Working hard for happiness and making the trappings of success our ultimate reason for existence leaves us trapped in a cycle of endless work and the feeling of never being enough.
It’s difficult to end this cycle for ourselves in a world that rewards the behavior and upholds the virtues of hustle culture. You always need to be doing. And everything is labor. Success and happiness are always outward facing, you have to prove it not to yourself, but to others. Smile to show you’re happy, get the new title and raise at work to show you’re a success. Package your life up in a picturesque box so strangers on the internet can be the judge and jury on your worth.
I’m tired of running after it. You run and you work yourself to death to make yourself happy and to get that “success” (whether that means perfect grades, a beautiful house, a relationship, the well-paying job, or any of the other visible indicators of success). Achieving these things signals your virtue. Achievement is the virtue, to create or exist without results is meaningless.
But achievement isn’t our reason for living. To merely exist is enough. We don’t need to justify our right to exist, merely being human is enough. If we did nothing for the rest of our lives, that would be enough.
Today, right now. You are enough.
