The Futility of Happiness: Why you should stop chasing happiness, and start embracing struggle

Lately I’ve been thinking about time.

More specifically, I’ve been thinking about how we choose to spend our free time, and the ramifications for being less intentional with our time than we probably should be.

Considering the alarming rates of anxiety, depression, divorce, loneliness, dementia, and the like, my curious mind could not sit idly by as if these unfortunate circumstances may not be a direct result of a society that is unintentional with how it spends its free time.

Why are these problems so endemic in our modern society, and moreover why are we living as if it is not a problem at all? And could we be unknowingly playing a hand in our own downward spiral by using our precious time in unproductive ways that lead us down a path of misery?

I’ve done quite a bit of reflection on this and I believe I’ve found the answer.

The mindlessness epidemic

It seems to me that a lot of us are in the rat-race of life where we are perpetually hustling to try to be happier in a sub-conscious yet never-ending quest to have the next best thing, to gain more status and recognition, to have more money, to have more life “experiences,” etc… If it’s not about having more then oftentimes its about having less – less responsibility, less discomfort, etc.

All of these things center around one thing, happiness. Most of our decisions in life come down to one goal, maximizing happiness, or minimizing lack thereof.

This quest for happiness drives much of what we do in our lives. In many respects it influences our professional decisions as well as our relationship decisions. But where it also influences our lives is in how we spend our leisure time. Much of life consists of taking care of responsibilities at work and in the home, but for most of us, we also have a certain amount of time throughout the week in which we are neither working, sleeping, nor taking care of personal obligations. This is basically leisure time.

Our leisure time is the precious time that we have free reign over. While decisions regarding work, family, and personal obligations are oftentimes more contingent on other things, our free time on the other hand is mostly in our control. Therefore, leisure is the time that we can leverage the most to create tangible and lasting impacts to our lives that will benefit, or hurt us, for years to come.

Ironically, our eternal quest for happiness usually drives us to over index on certain types of leisure that gives the illusion of life satisfaction, while actually working against our better interests in the longer term.

What do you do for fun?

It’s one of the most common and least exciting questions asked, and while it is likely to generate a myriad of answers, the data does not lie. Most American’s spend at least 2 hours a day scrolling on social media and another 3 hours a day watching television. Americans also cite going out to eat with friends and drinking socially as one of the top choices for spending their downtime.

Living in the heart of a major city, I can say anecdotally that those living in the largest cities will consistently come in above these averages as the combination of more social pressures as well as less access to nature and outdoor activities influences people to spend more time in trendy lounges and restaurants with friends and co-workers.

Leisure time seems to, for the most part, now be relegated to online shopping, binge watching TV series, consuming mind-altering substances, and indulging in variety of culinary experiences that living in a larger city has to offer – after all, who can say no to tacos and tequila on a Tuesday afternoon?

Don’t get me wrong, I do think it is very important to socialize with others as it is a core necessity for the human experience, and food, drinking, and TV/entertainment are all common interests that we use to congregate and socialize over. However, this has become the dominant form of leisure in which we are sinking an increasing amount of our precious time and money.

As great as these things are, our collective acceptance of food, drugs and alcohol, online shopping, and the like as our primary form of leisure is causing us damage to ourselves individually and societally in the long term, both mentally and physically. These things bring us gratification for the moment but they hardly move the needle in our overall satisfaction with life.

Aside from the questionable effects of impulse buying, staring at TV screens, drinking, and poor diet choices, as well as the dent that it puts on our pockets, I do believe that in a way, we partake in these activities because we subconsciously are trying to alleviate the pain-points in our lives which we think are standing in the way on our path towards happiness. In a way they provide a temporary escape from the monotony of life, from the stresses of work, from the boredom of solitude, the terror of discomfort, and the dysfunction of our relationships.

The happiness trap

This brings me to the concept of happiness. I truly believe that chasing happiness is a quick way to living a life that leaves us feeling empty on the inside. Chasing happiness relegates us to spending time engaging in activities that bring gratification and joy for the moment, but hardly creates any sort of material change in our overall wellbeing. Tacos and tequila may make us happy in the moment, but I will argue with a high degree of confidence that neither of them will bring profound and lasting satisfaction with life.

It seems that in some respects our society is sleepwalking through life, casually consuming endless amounts of sources of instant gratification. We seemingly have become an entertainment-rich society in which our lives are a nonstop adventure of exciting thing after exciting thing that merely mask our reality. In a way, we tend to use much of our free time to create temporary escapes from reality and dissatisfying elements of our day-to-day lives.

As a capitalist, even I can tell you that modern American capitalism’s success depends on masses of people chasing that ever elusive sense of happiness through the consumption of entertainment and material goods.

It may seem like I am anti-fun, but that is not the case at all. Rather, I am passionate about people finding pathways in life that bring true contentment, as I have witnessed one too many friends succumb to the grasp of anxiety and depression, and I can tell you that these temporary pursuits of instant gratification may have alleviated the problem in the moment, but did absolutely nothing to position them to fundamentally shift their outlook and their mindset on life.

I’ve come to the realization that chasing happiness is a fool’s errand, that misses the forest for the trees. It distracts us from life pursuits that extract the full range of possibilities out of our lives.

Fulfillment through struggle

Rather than chasing happiness, we should instead pursue fulfillment.

What do I mean by fulfillment and how is it different than happiness? In the simplest of terms “happiness” is an easily attainable, yet temporary, state of well-being or gratification while “fulfillment” is the enduring satisfaction, pride, confidence, and sense of purpose that is attained through achievement.

Happiness can be given to us, while fulfillment must be earned.

How do we achieve fulfillment? Simple. If you look up synonyms for “fulfillment” you will see words like attainment, actualization, accomplishment, and success. The commonality of all of these words are that they imply overcoming some sort of challenge or struggle.

Struggle comes in many different forms, but in general what I mean by “struggle” is to face something that is difficult willingly or unwillingly, and to apply one’s self in a focused manner to overcome the challenge that lies before us. While happiness focuses our sense of well-being on outcomes, fulfillment brings us into the present moment and forces us to invest time, energy, and attention on the process – the day-to-day experiences that make up the vast majority of our lives rather than instantaneous moments in time.

When we focus on a process, something magical happens. We start to enjoy it, even when it is difficult, even when it is uncomfortable, and even when it is painful at times. The incremental progress that we make as we focus on the process of overcoming struggle, serves as the foundational building blocks of a fulfilled life and a life that has purpose.

Looking inward

I challenge you to take an honest inventory of how you spend your idle time and to assess whether or not the activities that you take part in are oriented towards being happy or towards being fulfilled.

I find that the following question can help to quickly decipher which category our activities belong in:

“Is this an activity that is difficult to do, requires both patience and dedicated focus, makes you lose track of time, you are proud to attach to your identity, and culminates in you being a better version of yourself after a prolonged period of engagement?”

If any particular leisure activity results in a ‘yes’ then it has a fulfillment-orientation. If any particular leisure activity results in a ‘no’, then it has a happiness-orientation. If the majority of your free time is spent chasing happiness-oriented activities, then perhaps there is opportunity to scale back on a few and begin incorporating more fulfilling leisure activities into your life.

Doing so will help to prevent the onset of depression, anxiety, and sense of purposelessness, that the mindless consumption of food, alcohol, online shopping, television, and countless other sources of instant gratification tend to promote.

But what are examples of common fulfillment-oriented activities? I’ve provided the graphic below of an inventory of activities along with categorizations of being either fulfillment or happiness-oriented.

I should also make clear that it is totally fine to spend time in happiness-oriented pursuits. The problem lies when our lives become overly indexed on happiness without creating room for fulfillment.

The results of shifting to a fulfillment-oriented mindset

Ever since I’ve had this revelation that fulfillment is a more worthy pursuit than happiness, I have found myself spending less time doing things that may be fun or convenient for the moment but add no tangible value to my life in the grand scheme of things. Lately I’ve been spending more time engaging in deeply fulfilling pursuits that have led me to become more grounded, more intentional, stronger, more skilled, etc..

Chronic depression which once left me wracked with physical and emotional pain as given way to excitement for how interesting life will be after years of studying a new language and practicing new calisthenics skills.

Chronic anxiety has given way to taking life one day at a time and looking forward to the challenges of each day as an opportunity to get better or smarter.

Purposelessness has given way to the joy of writing these articles, knowing that at least one person out there reads it and gets something valuable out of it.

Had I not gone through the exercise mentioned above and taken an inventory of how my leisure time is spent, then I may not have re-focused my life to be more intentional, and certainly would not have taken up a number of fulfillment-oriented activities that has made all the difference in my life.

With all of that said, I hope you too can find your pathway toward fulfillment by embracing struggle and understanding that once we stop making decisions based on maximizing happiness, we begin to unlock the fullness of life.