The Four Horsemen of Happiness
My current understanding (as of July 2021) of personal growth and change.
When I was a junior lawyer, I moved from the firm to being in house.
I had an expectation - whether internally imposed or externally imposed I don’t remember.
The expectation was that I respond to an email as fast as possible. In many cases, even taking an hour was too long.
Because I was dedicating so many of my mental resources towards being ready at any moment to receive and respond to an urgent email (which frankly I didn’t get that many of), it knocked me out of the ability to actually concentrate.
So basically, I ended up doing very little work before 5pm, even though I was in the office and trying to work.
I ended up having to work another full work day, right after work, every single day, so I could get my work done.
But my quality of life was suffering.
There were a number of factors at play here - you guessed it, we’re back on the map of current understanding of personal transformation (I talked about it in the last episode of the podcast which you can find here).
Here are the four main types of things that get in our way of being happy:
Numbing
Perfectionism
Worry
The Tyranny of Happy
The story above centers around worry. I was so worried about the emails coming in and me not being able to respond quickly that I couldn’t actually get any work done. My worry was (severely) negatively affecting my quality of life.
The other horsemen showing up here is perfectionism. Trying to chase perfect made it so that I ended up doing a worse job overall, rather than accepting that I could be not quite as responsive to emails (i.e. not perfect) which would then carve out space to allow me to do my best work.
I also numb. I notice that if I’m feeling anxious, I’ll often turn to food. Eating something helps push those feelings of anxiety away. I’ve also successfully used food as a concentration aid, which is a very dangerous place to be in (can lead to disordered eating, weight gain, and worse).
This is just one example. I know people who numb with exercise, TV, and work. It really can be anything.
The last one I wanted to discuss is the tyranny of happy.
I was told as a kid, “love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Life is not like that. Which means it gives us expectations that are never going to be met. That’s the tyranny of happy, chasing unattainable, unrealistic goals and not being happy when you inevitably don’t reach them.
I’m still exploring this concept, but as we unpack it - Which of these four horsemen most shows up in your life?
I would love to hear what you think about this.
Join us this week as we discuss this and more.
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