Humans are motivated by the need for happiness. Everything in life is geared towards making ourselves comfortable and happy. Unfortunately, we have neuroses that tell us that making ourselves happy in the short term while not working towards our long term goals will make us unhappy in the long term, and so when there is this cognitive dissonance, we become unhappy.
Let's take a typical situation. I have work to do, and I have an episode of a show I want to watch. Watching the show will make me happy now, and doing work will make me happy only after I've finished it because doing work is inherently unpleasant. After all, work is a bad word. It has 4 letters.
No prizes for guessing what we eventually end up doing. We choose instant gratification over the delayed one, because we only want to be happy, and we want it now. And after that, we let guilt take over us and we feel like shit.
And despite knowing this, this pattern will repeat again and again in our lives, simply because when faced with a situation like this, we will choose the path that promises the quickest path to happiness.
But we don't realise something. It doesn't mean that just because we do work, we will definitely feel happy in the long term. Life does not happen that way. What happens is, when you do work, you will find out that there is more work. Work gives birth to work. So you end up doing more and more work, and you stay unhappy. You might feel a small pinch of gratification that you made yourself do something so difficult, but how long does that high last? About as long as the high you get from watching that show. But on top of that, you've already endured maybe one hour of pure shit.
Let me illustrate what has just happened with a mathematical equation.
I watch show = 1 hour of bliss followed by one hour of unhappiness. Then you have to do work.
I do work = 1 hour of unhappiness followed by one hour of bliss. Then you still have to do work, because work never ends.
In addition, life is unfair. Here's another demonstration of how life works.
I watch show = 1 hour of bliss, then shit happens
I do work = 1 hour of shit, then more shit happens
What's the difference? The difference is, by not taking the route to happiness when it was readily apparent, you have just allowed life to sucker punch you and now any chance of happiness you might have had for the day has been taken away.
I watched a video a few days back of gal-sa girls in Japan, girls with bleached hair and fake tans who do nothing but dance para-para all day long and hang out. Normally, you would think that these girls are headed for disaster because they are not studying or working to give themslves an edge in the future in the job market.
But the thing is, these girls are a lot happier with life than we'll ever be, because they are having the time of their lives hanging out with their best friends dancing para-para. Even if their lives are shit in the future, they can say they truly lived once, and I have nothing to say to that, because they really did. I actually found myself turning green with envy, because I would give an arm and a leg to just take off for a few years with a bunch of good buddies and live life.
And who is to say that the lives of these girls will be shit in the future? Maybe they might end up as dance instructors teaching para para and earn a comfortable salary. They will end up doing what they love, and continue living a happy life.
If I were to look back at my own life, all I can say is, I studied for 20 plus years and after that I worked my ass off for the rest of it. How is it that a bunch of para-para girls have a better quality of life than I do.
I find that when we look at people, what we envy is the level of happiness we perceive them to have. This is why we envy people with happy families, people who do what they love, people who are in love, people who are rich and hence supposedly able to live more comfortable, fulfilling and happier lives, and people who have nothing but are happy anyway.
The last category never fails to inspire me, because there are truly people with nothing who are happy despite having nothing, because they are happy just to live. And these people are often generous, sharing whatever they have, even if it is next to nothing. They give because it makes them even happier. The truth is, everyone has lives that are shit at some point. It doesn't mean that just because you're rich your life is always happy. It doesn't mean that just because you have a happy family you don't fight behind closed doors.
Take happiness when you can. Watch that show. Learn something you've always wanted to. Take that holiday you've been itching to take. I'm not promoting laziness or procrastination here. I am promoting happiness, although you will probably say I am encouraging you to slack.
But I don't care. Happiness is not a right, it's a privilege. And when you can, do that little bit to make someone else's life better. Because happiness is not a zero sum equation. You can never have enough of it, and more is always better.