Happiness is Peace in Motion
as well as Happiness is kind of like free fall
Happy Wednesday, Wednesday Balms
Today, we’re talking about HAPPINESS.
This week’s WB is inspired by a quote from one of my favorite inspirations, Naval.
I’ll give a brief breakdown on his quote / his thinking, I’ll talk a bit about why happiness is a peaceful construct (vs a love one), riff on my personal take on happiness, and then suggest some ways for y’alls to find it yourself.
Enjoy :)
Today’s Lineup:
Side A - Happiness is Peace in Motion
Side B - Why Happiness Belongs in Peace (vs Love)
Side C - Happiness as Free Fall
Side D - How to Find Happiness
Side A - Happiness is Peace in Motion
As mentioned above, this idea came from this investor/philosopher named Naval Ravikant.
(Click to watch the Naval Video ~ 3 minutes long)
In his view, happiness and peace are one in the same and the presence/absence of both is dependent on the the presence/absence of stress.
Physically, stress is when something wants to be in two places at one time (If STRESS is applied to a steel beam it wants to be in two places in one time. One place is at rest / structurally where it is. The other is whatever direction its being pulled in).
In a person, stress is when someone wants to be in TWO places/states at the same time. I want THIS, but I also want THAT).
In this way, for Naval, Happiness is the resolved state when the person definitively accepts the place that they are currently in. Stress is when you want two things. No stress is when you only want one thing.
Naval then further riffs on a connection between Happiness and Peace, stating Happiness is Peace in motion and Peace is Happiness at rest. A Peaceful person doing an activity will often be happy. A Happy person doing nothing will be peaceful.
When I think on this, I think of two things. My last dog, Poki and gratitude.
For me, a lot of times stress has a relationship toward the amount of activities I have done against the amount of activities I have yet to do. It’s still one at a time, but the existence of things to be done AFTER sort of pulls my focus away.
If my to-do list has 5 items but I only have 1 - then that’s something like a 1/5 completion rate. Which feels like a 4/5 stress level. The more activities I have to get done, the more stress is inherently felt by the fact of things not yet done.
In contrast to the *never-ending to-do list* with my last dog (who was very old), I imagined his to-do list had only ONE item on it - “be a dog.”
Every time I would walk by him and see him just hanging out, I’d imagine a little 1/1 above his head and that would make me laugh. He had one job - BE A DOG and he did that just by existing. So in my mind, he was this perfect animal in a perfect state of being.
Gratitude is kind of like that - it is the 1/1 state of being. It is when you can mentally find and assign yourself only ONE task and you also only do that one thing. 1/1 tasks done over tasks needing to be done.
Is this always accessible?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no.
We all have obligations / duties / roles / work to do and those responsibilities are often things that NEED to get done. Because of this, the long to-do list is unavoidable. One way to access peace as Naval talks about is to simply focus on one thing at a time and accept the fact that you can only do one at a time. However for those of us that have a hard time focusing, one framework could be thinking about the whole to-do list as a unified set. It’s not 5 different tasks that need to get done. It’s just one task. And that task is simply to be yourself.
Side B - Why Happiness Belongs in Peace (vs Love)
This Naval idea is one of my favorites.
For a while, I’ve been reluctant to add it to the Wednesday Balms because I wasn’t quite sure of how it fit in with the other elements of Peace.
In my mind, happiness is this state of being that happens as you are doing the things you love or are in the presence of those you love. Happiness, like laughter, is something that pulls us out of the mundane and CHANGES us. It has always felt like something that belonged in the domain of Love.
That said, I feel maybe that’s partly because of societal preconceptions on both Love and Happiness.
On Love
Through things like books, film, TV, music, etc - Love is always portrayed as this ecstatic fever dream. It is romantic and therefore romanticized. Often times, what media tends to forget is how complex and complicated Love truly is. Yes, it is the flowers, the dates, the radio held in the rain - but also it is the messy stuff in between. The apology letters, the awkward silences, the break-ups, etc.
In terms of WB, Love is seen as this state of CHANGE. It is dynamic. It is the fire that forges. The magic that turns iron into steel. Yes, it is often delightful and brings lots of happiness, but also it is so much more. Every successful (real life) Love story involves transition and growth. And growth isn’t always comfortable or happy.
And it is somewhat counter-cultural (in terms of media) to think of Love in this way. Many people believe that Love is meant to ONLY include the sparks and the joy and all those good things. For some, the absence of romance appears to be the absence of love. In reality, that back pressure is still very much a part of the process.
On Happiness
Culturally, we tend to focus too much on happiness as a baseline and a goal.
People say, “do what makes you feel happy?” as well as when you’re not feeling happy, people tend to ask, “what’s wrong? Did something happen?”
In reality, happiness is kind of like a full gas tank. When people are fulfilled (and their tank is full), they’re happy. But just like a gas tank, that state of being full is something that is *technically* unsustainable. As you drive around, that tank is depleted. And then you have to fill it up again. Happiness is like that, it comes, it goes, and that’s all natural. It is something that isn’t meant to be CONSTANTLY touched up.
Side C - Happiness as Free Fall
I’ve had this idea for a while and I’ve shared it with a few people.
In my mind, Happiness is more like free fall than it is like the state of being up there.
Imagine yourself flying up in an airplane. When you get to a certain altitude, the door opens, you jump out (with a parachute) and then you’re plummeting toward earth. That whole way down, it is exhilarating and thrilling, but eventually, you’ll have to land. Or maybe think of it like a roller coast, you get pulled up to the top - you get released - you fly down, but eventually the ride is over.
Of course you can reload and do it all over again, but you can’t possibly be thrilled constantly forever and ever.
I like to imagine it like this. We all have a neutral or a baseline mood. Sad is negative. Happiness is positive. When we do stuff OUT of the ordinary, that is different than the normal routine, that magical feeling is happiness. But it is still relevant toward the baseline of neutral. Let’s say you eat a sandwich every day for lunch. But then one day, you have SUSHI. That difference, that is happiness. But also, if you were to eat sushi every day - that’s your new baseline. Additional sushi won’t necessarily make you feel happy.
In terms of Peace and earning Peace, confronting non-peace is like flying up in the airplane or riding up in the roller coaster. It is the work that is done to get you to a certain spot. And then as you dynamically change that state - convert the potential energy - that experience is like happiness.
Side D - How to Find Happiness
Historically, everyone has a WEALTH of Memories of Happiness. I don’t know if I can say this applies to everyone, but I am willing to bet MOST of us have at least one or two happy memories.
That said, this method of finding happiness requires that mental database. If you’ve never been happy before, I don’t know if this method will work for you.
Step 01 → Identify a powerful memory (or three)
Build a list of your happiest memories. Pick the happiest one. If you can’t decide, pick three.
Then based on that, analyze and think about those memories. What happened? What was fun about it? Why was it fun?
Step 02 → Invite that memory into your life.
Let’s say your happy memory is eating pizza from a certain restaurant. If that’s it - just do it. Find a way to get that pizza. Invite that happy memory into your life.
If you don’t have time to get that pizza or if that pizza is too far to get? That could be an indicator of a lack of SPACE. Life as it currently is has no space for that happiness. If this is the case, you have to make space for it. If the pizza requires a 30 minute drive and you don’t have 30 minutes to go and get it - find a way to find that 30 minutes.
This will require some level of sacrifice and adjustment, but it is necessary.
The inability to do so will manifest in STRESS. (“I want THIS pizza” is one direction and “I want to keep my current schedule” is another direction. Inevitably, something will have to give).
Important Note:
Sometimes our “happy memory” that we’re trying to access is no longer accessible. Maybe the pizza shop doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe it is truly impossible to go there.
If that is the case, it is still possible, but it will require some work.
To do this, you’ll have to *deconstruct* the memory. You can start by looking at that analysis you did - What happened, what was fun about it, why?
And then reverse engineer it. Let’s say the pizza had olives on it and that was the first time you ever had olives. If that pizza place isn’t around anymore, maybe find a way to try a new pizza with a new kind of olive. Or maybe you can try a pizza with a completely different type of ingredient that you’ve never had before.
Ultimately, it is less about recreating the exact experience, but instead finding one that gives you a similar feeling.
This part kind of skirts the line between Peace and Love. If the mode for accessing Peace (happiness) is truly impossible, that’s where something like Love in its ability to transform a situation can be useful. That is - when you truly exhaust all possibilities for Peace, maybe the tool that is needed is Love.