Struggle is important for an individual’s happiness. You should do a bunch of stuff, or one huge thing, that you are terrible at. You will feel most happiness when you get a little better at something that you used to be bad at
Humans are evolved to deal with struggle and trauma. If trauma was incapacitating to people for years or lifetime we wouldn’t exist. Our ancestry as a species incorporated a large amount of trauma. Humans are made to react to trauma by protecting ourselves emotionally and physically for a certain amount of time, week or months, maybe a year or two at most, and then to slowly come out of it and continue functioning as normal.
If you feel depressed, if you can get away with it, you should not medicate it away. Prescription or self medication. This will deprive you of feeling the experiences of your life. Your life may be filled with tough things that will build fortitude in you. If you medicate, those things will be taken from you.
As Ryan Holiday says, and I have blogged on previously, The Obstacle Is The Way. The way to a more fulfilled life. It is your life. Do not give the experience of it away. Because it is all you really have. Feel free to speak to someone professional about your problems, especially if you are worried about yourself, but make sure you do not dope yourself up enough to accept a life that is not working very well.
Struggle Leads To Happiness
Struggle is important for an individual’s happiness. You should do a bunch of stuff, or one huge thing, that you are terrible at. You will feel most happiness when you get a little better at something that you used to struggle at. That is exactly how as animal we are wired to react to success. When you are facing a challenging struggle and do something well, you get a little release of feel good hormones like endorphins and dopamine. That will encourage you to keep repeatedly doing that task and overcoming challenges, which is how people adapt and survive in harsh circumstances.
The problem with modern society is that we do not need to struggle to survive. No one in an affluent world is having to figure out every morning what tasks that they need to complete to live out the rest of the day: where am I going to find food, where am I going to find shelter, how am I going to avoid getting killed by an enemy. This is obviously an enormous blessing. The downside is that you do not get the endorphin rush and happiness that you get from struggle to master your circumstances. You do not feel responsible for your own survival. You do not feel like you are earning your own existence in the world. You feel like it is being handed to you.
I grew up in an affluent suburb in the bible belt of Sydney. I never felt as a young man that I had to contribute to the fact that I was physically alive on the planet. This is a situation that is very very recent in human history, that young men did not have to lay down and fight for their own lives and the lives of others. It is a massive blessing but also a bit of a curse.
The most disconnected are the spoiled little rich kids that get handed everything to them and do not have an understanding at all about the consequences of their behaviour. That kind of life is correlated with depression and substance abuse. The suicide rate is rising fastest amongst middle aged white men who are inarguably the demographic who are the most privileged in this society. They are doing the best financially but doing the worse biopsychosocially.
Key Factor For Happiness
Wealth is not the primary factor for happiness. Obviously extreme poverty can bring about feelings of despair, but it has been proven that there is a ceiling of around £80,0000 per annum earnings and then increases in happiness level out, or actually go the other way. The biggest indicator of happiness is being good at somethings and being recognised for it. The other factors include feeling part of a group. This is a major reason why there is a high incidence of depression and suicide in former professional team sport athletes. They often have all the money in the world, no longer have to struggle, but are no longer lorded for their abilities to kick, run, jump or throw and they no longer have the locker room comradery.
Each day, set yourself the challenge of putting yourself outside your comfort zone. This may be a difficult conversation. Either you have needed to have for a while or simply with a stranger for no reason than to challenge yourself. Your reptilian mind does not know the difference between social fear and genuine fear for your life. This challenge may be enough to satisfy your tribal instincts
Research suggests that persons improve, learn and reach a flow state when they are doing something that is just a little, 4% actually, harder than they are used to; just outside their comfort zone.
… It’s pretty easy, in lots of ways, to do better than other people… A lot of people think there’s some special sauce, there’s some magic or you have a particular skill… but I actually do think I just work harder than people. I just work; I just work harder, and I try harder and I’m more persistent
– Kara Swisher on The Tim Ferriss Show
So, go out there and challenge yourself. Struggle. You will be much happier. And much more successful to boot.
Enjoy!
Scott