What Rock Bottom Taught Me About Happiness

that’s been making the rounds on the

internet and it’s been attributed to

john lennon i think

and uh you may have seen it it says

when i was five years old my mother

always told me that

happiness is the key to life so when i

got to school

they asked me what i wanted to be when i

grew up so

i wrote down happy they told me that i

didn’t understand the assignment

and i told them that they didn’t

understand life

now this is you know most likely not a

quote by john lennon

it’s just a cheesy anecdote but it is

one of the most shared ones on the

internet you know it’s been posted

several million times why

well for one because it does take a

clever swing at authority and we can all

relate to that

but you know it also gets

at a deeper truth that all of us

can intuit happiness really is the key

to life

but you know you might walk away with a

pretty satisfied smirk on your face

after reading this like oh hey you know

pretty clever kid he showed them then

but

what you probably don’t ask yourself is

how

how is he gonna be happy because even if

happiness is the key to life it eludes

pretty much all of us

so you know while we’re at it let’s ask

the big scary question

what is happening well actually you know

maybe we should

take it a little smaller because you

know it is only

humanity’s biggest question and today is

a saturday

so if i asked you

tell me about a time when you felt

happy what would you tell me perhaps

you would tell me about that perfect day

at the beach

or about the first time when you held

your child in your arms

or you know the day when you got

that award that you worked 10 years for

or something as simple as just you know

savoring your favorite ice cream

or i don’t know jumping out of an

airplane

well actually maybe that’s not on

everybody’s list

so these things are all pretty different

you know there’s a wide range

of what we call happy and we could use

very different words for them as well

you know we can call them joy

euphoria excitement pleasure bliss

it turns out that this you know there’s

quite a lot of nuance to this happiness

thing

and the reason why there’s so much

diversity is because we have four

different chemicals

in our bodies that make us feel good

the first one is serotonin and that’s

the most famous one you know the one

that’s usually associated with happiness

and it’s actually responsible for for

inner balance you know for that sense of

peace and sense of calm

then you have oxytocin that’s called the

love chemical

and you get it from touching from

hugging your loved ones from laughing

with your friends

then there’s endorphins and that’s your

body’s natural anesthetic

and you know when you exercise very

vigorously

um you get kind of that you know that

high the runner’s high

that’s um endorphins and

the last one is dopamine that’s the

reward chemical

so um you know when you’re accomplishing

a task and you

feel that sense of satisfaction that’s

dopamine at work

and what’s even cooler is that you can

get

you can you know these chemicals mix up

with each other and also with other

chemicals that we produce in our bodies

and they produce this kind of cool

amazing hormonal cocktails

for example if you take dopamine and

oxytocin

and you throw in some adrenaline which

is associated with fear

then you get crazy in love

or according to your ex just crazy

so which one of these is happiness is it

all of them

can we maximize them you know can we

just crank them up

so that we feel like this all the time

and is this what happiness is

this is just chemistry is it just a

bunch of feel-good states

before i attempt to answer some of these

questions

i want to tell you why i’m so interested

in this topic

four years ago i had a complete rock

bottom

and i had depression and i had ptsd

that’s post-traumatic stress syndrome

and it sounds bad and it was bad i was

absolutely miserable

and i was as far away from happiness as

you can possibly imagine um and i

decided i was going to

throw all of my resources into getting

myself out of this

you know dark place and

you know i i did and turns out you know

it

put me on a very interesting life path

and i turned it into a career

that’s a topic for a completely

different talk

um but the point is that you know i was

doing so many things therapy alternative

medicine

meditation like you name it i was doing

it

and this stuff worked you know i was

feeling better

and better and at some point in my

healing journey

i stumbled upon a state that

i had never encountered before at least

not

in my adult life i felt this

this joy and this peace and the zest for

life

you know and i didn’t have to do

anything for it i would just wake up in

the morning and i was in love with life

and i was completely confused and so

i went to my therapist and

i was like i feel absolutely amazing

what the hell is this and he was like

well

you know that’s inner happiness the

that one you’ve been you’ve been reading

about this whole time

and i was like oh really

i thought that was just something that

they put on greeting cards that’s a

thing

and he was like yeah it’s a thing

and of course i didn’t believe him

i do have some trust issues but good

thing is i am

in therapy so i was like

okay i’m gonna research this

and i went to read

accounts of monks of yogis

of you know mystics from across all ages

and across all faiths turns out

it is a thing they said it’s a thing so

you know they all talked about

experiencing it and how they get to it

and i was still not convinced

so i was like okay i’m gonna go to

anthropology

there is this idea that you know man

had a sort of golden age that there was

this time

when we lived kind of in a real garden

of eden you know hunter-gatherer tribes

kind of the

um the time before the agricultural

revolution happened and

everything went downhill these people

actually you know lived in that primal

human basic state

and i was like okay i’m going to read

about these hunter-gatherer tribes

right about all kinds from different

continents

turns out they all had this you know

amazing zest for life

and joy and that was their their kind of

primal basic state

and finally i was like okay so it’s a

thing

and i got so angry

i was like how is it possible

that i lived 35 years on this planet

this is supposed to be you know the

primal

state of of humanity and it took a

complete rock bottom

and it took dozens of hours of therapy

and you know meditation and all this

hard work

for me to end up feeling what was

supposedly my birthright

well actually if you think about it it’s

not surprising that i hadn’t felt that

before

you know society the way it’s designed

it’s meant for us to chase happiness you

know from a very young age

um we’re constantly looking forward to

the

the next toy the next ice cream um

the next party you know the your first

car

your first promotion your first love

whatever you know goes on and on and on

and that’s life

and we’re constantly looking for rewards

and looking for stimulation

and we’re all kind of addicts in our own

way

even the kind of bliss that you get from

meditation

even that’s a state that we end up

chasing

but this kind of inner happiness that

i’m talking about

it’s not the kind of happiness that you

can get from chasing

it actually only shows up

when you stop chasing you know when you

let go of all of society’s programming

when you heal all of the shoulds and the

have to’s and

i’m not enough when you finally decide

you know to completely belong to

yourself

to love yourself exactly as you are

that’s

when this happiness shows up so

you’re probably thinking amazing

so you discovered this and now you feel

this all the time

no i mean you know as much as i would

like

to say that i discovered some sort of

nirvana

that’s actually not how it works um you

know unless you’re willing to give up on

the world

live as a monk on top of a mountain

and you know spend your time meditation

no feel-good

state is meant to last and it’s not

designed to

you know happiness is not a destination

it’s not going to happen

when you get that degree or when you

sell the company

or when you marry the love of your life

it’s not even going to happen when you

love yourself fully

no you don’t get to happiness and stay

there

happiness is an ecosystem what’s an

ecosystem

you know in biology it’s a bunch of

organisms that are interacting together

and with their environment so your

happiness ecosystem is made

of a bunch of elements you know the

usual suspects

relationships um community

having a sense of purpose having

financial stability

having meaning you know you know these

guys

and here’s the key insight ecosystems

are

in dynamic equilibrium what that means

is that they’re constantly moving you

know there’s an ebb and

flow within ecosystems and

all of these elements within them are

interdependent

and this means that you can’t focus on

any one of them and expect them to bring

you happiness

you know you can’t just say oh you know

i’m just gonna choose the lions and the

savannah cause they’re kind of cool

and i’m not interested in any of the

other stuff

it’s not going to work you know your

lions are not going to

thrive they’re not going to do well at

all because they need the gazelles and

the grass and

everything else in the savannah in order

to thrive

and

you know at the same time

does this mean that we’re constantly

having to rush around

to balance everything you know going

crazy like

oh are the lions okay and are the

gazelles okay

and is the grass growing or doing

whatever

grass is supposed to do no

that’s the whole point of this dynamic

equilibrium

you know it’s it’s constantly moving

it’s constantly changing

so you know sometimes you will have more

lions and sometimes you will have less

and sometimes the gazelles will have a

phenomenal year and

you know maybe sometimes there’s going

to be a locust invasion

or even worse there’s going to be a

pandemic

and then your ecosystem

will suffer and you’re going to feel

pain

but pain is not the opposite of

happiness

pain is actually part of happiness

it’s part of the ecosystem and pain

is an amazing alarm mechanism that is

meant to show you

when you’re stuck when things aren’t

going well

and it motivates us to keep moving to

grow

to look for a new equilibrium point one

where you know your relationships will

be

more fulfilling and you will have more

passion and a better sense of purpose

and your community will be more vibrant

and maybe some of you are thinking right

now

you know what actually i’m not

interested in this whole happiness thing

i just want to be filthy rich

you know who you are here’s how it works

pretty much every single thing that any

human does on this planet

is in pursuit of happiness except that

we don’t necessarily know that’s what

we’re doing at least not explicitly

we buy so much into the what you want to

be when you grow up

that we end up devising these really

complex ways

to obtain happiness you know for example

oh i’m gonna become a doctor and i’m

gonna save a bunch of people

and my parents will be very happy and

then i’m gonna be happy

or i know i’m gonna start a tech company

and i’m gonna become a billionaire and

i’m gonna ride in private jets

and then everybody will admire me and

then i’ll be happy

or even worse i know

i’m gonna become a crazy dictator then

everybody will be afraid of me

then i’m not gonna feel so small and

powerless anymore

and then i’m gonna be happy we get so

caught up in the pursuit and we end up

believing that’s what we were after all

along

what if we openly acknowledge

that happiness is what we’re actually

after

what if every single one of you went

home today

and asked themselves the question

if that’s what i’m after how will i

behave differently

you know asking an open question like

that can

really completely

change your horizons maybe you will

invest more in your relationships make

time to listen to your partner more

maybe you will read to your kids at

night

maybe you will finally quit the job that

you hate

and start that business that

everybody tells you that is stupid

or actually quite on the contrary you

know maybe finally you decide that

you are actually not interested in

startups and you were just doing it

because

you know everybody thought it was cool

and what you really want

is a job that other people will find

boring but that’s really satisfying to

you and you really want to just go

fishing every sunday

the effect that asking this question

every single day for months

and months will be astonishing it will

have a ripple effect throughout your

whole ecosystem

it will have an impact on every single

person in your life

and eventually it will completely change

the way you live the way you love

the way you do business and next time

when a smart ass like me comes along and

asks you

hey so do you know what happiness is

you’re gonna be able to tell them yeah

i know what happiness is

it’s a life well-lived on my own terms

thank you