This One Happiness Hack Will Make Your Life Richer

GIVE UP

Yep. Give up. So much of what we are told isn’t really that helpful. We are told to chase and strive, to never stop, to just do it, to hustle. To wake up at 4 am and keep pushing. That nothing good ever comes to the person who doesn’t compete, who doesn’t get down and dirty. You get the picture. You know the picture. It’s everywhere. 

Should we keep on going? Should we never give up? Things change. Values, priorities, goals, relationships, ideas - you should be able to change with them. If you are going to do damage to your body, stop running. If you are tired, have a nap. If your job stinks, quit. If your husband or wife is not very nice and doesn’t want to change - leave them. I know life is not that simple, but bear with me. 

It’s funny what we value, what has become shareable. So many people have told me about David Goggins - the ultra marathon runner - by replaying the same story of how he kept on running severely dehydrated, in danger of kidney failure, urinating blood, and risking his life in the process - they speak of this deed with tremendous awe and respect. They speak of his loud, tough, and abrupt messaging to his fans about never giving up with the same awe and respect too. Maybe it is just me, but great awe isn't my first thought - instead, it is more along the lines of “I wonder what the long-term damage is of not listening to your body for so long? And, of being so hard on oneself?” 

Why would you destroy your body and your health to keep running - you are not running away from a tiger. The body is actually telling you to stop. Listen to it. Who knows what long-term damage you have done - time will only tell I guess. But, I’d love to hear his motivational talks in 25 years. “Wheel that wheelchair to the nursing home diner, fast, don’t quit. You are strong.” But, somehow these kinds of messages have become what’s shareable today, what gains respect and followers. 

It’s a commonly held misconception that if we are hard on ourselves, we will be more motivated and driven, that we will succeed more. The “inner critic” is often seen as “the taskmaster” and if we don’t listen to this loud, berating, harsh and critical voice then we will become a slob and stay at home in bed eating chocolate all day.  A common fallacy is that the inner critic is highly necessary in order to achieve and maintain productive momentum.  

Let’s examine this belief. 

Interestingly, research has found that self-criticism is not an effective motivator because it tends to undermine our self-confidence, increase procrastination and lead to a fear of failure. Whereas if we are kinder and more accepting of our inadequacies, we will still be motivated to achieve our goals but not because we perceive ourselves as inadequate and failures but because we care about ourselves and regard reaching our full potential as important and enriching. 

That’s a huge difference between what Mr Goggins is promoting. 

A quick look at the research and literature on self-compassion from people like Kristen Neff, Tara Brach, and Sam Solly, to name just a few, demonstrates what a healthier and more effective approach looks like. Looking up to people like David Goggins, a retired Navy Seal, with no doubt a lot of trauma, a lot of which probably manifests in his berating inner critic, and then moves into his unhealthy motivational talks to millions of others. Others likely have the same berating inner voices, which then only perpetuates the problem. Maybe we shouldn’t be listening to David Goggins, maybe we should be giving him a hug. Because it is this same damaging inner critic that is especially rife in minority groups and leads to a whole range of other, more complex, issues.

Much of what we are told are big business lies. You will never be Steve Jobs. It doesn’t matter if you wake up at 3 am every day, and never give up. To be Steve Jobs you would have had to live in Northern California in the mid-1970s, 6 months earlier or later and you probably don’t exist. He’s not exceptional, he grew up at the right time, in the right area. The same reason why a majority of NHL players are born in the months from January to March.  They are not the ones who simply didn’t give up, they are just the ones who were slightly older, bigger, and more developed than their younger teammates and opponents, and thus made the junior representative teams - giving them access to better coaching, better teammates, and better resources. They aren’t the ones who kept on going, they are the ones born in a particular month. 

You can’t do everything you want. Despite its popularity, you can’t manifest your dreams. 

We can’t do it all. We can’t be it all. Growth, bigger, better, more, different - it’s tiring, it’s stressful. It always takes us out of wherever we are and puts us in an imaginary future. We get stuck in all the “I’ll be happy” scenarios - when I get that promotion, that partner, when my investments soar and when I get faster. If we are always racing ahead, improving, competing when do we ever stop? When is enough, ever enough? When do we get to enjoy our lives and the people in it?

Buddhist Monk and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh would say, “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything— anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.” When we give ourselves the time to stop and reflect, we can see all of our habits more clearly. All of our ideas, and our conditioning. Does my mind always return to the same thought patterns, the same desires? When we let go of how we hope things will be, and become content with how they really are, we can delve more deeply into the present moment and answer important questions with more clarity and composure. We can become more aware of our conditioning and biases and this just might be the birthplace of a truer, more authentic life. 

In Learning from the Heart by Daniel Gottlieb, Gottlieb writes, “Hope is always about the future. And it isn’t always good news. Sometimes hope can imprison us with the belief or expectation that something will happen in the future to change our lives. Similarly, hopelessness isn’t always about despair. Hopelessness can bring us right into this very moment and answer all of life’s most difficult questions. Who am I, where am I, what does this mean, and what now.”

This is letting go– this is giving up - when we let go of how we hope things to be and become content with how they really are. Of course, hope is also important…It can allow us to get through difficult times. It can remind us that things are always changing and impermanent. What is hopeful, could soon be hopeless and back again. But, there is a difference between continual grasping - a reaching out and a pushing away. When we grasp so tightly for something, it leaves us little room for anything else. Living future-facing prevents us from finding joy right now, or even from trying. Why would we, it’s going to be better over there. 

Don’t keep on charging ahead if it is negatively impacting the other, important, areas of your life. I recently stepped away from the company I founded, and to be honest, I should have done it about a year earlier. My energy, passion, and vitality were zapped way back then, but I got sucked into the idea of creating that great organisation, I got trapped in a title - that we are what we do. Maybe it would have been better for me to go with what I felt - to go with what we feel. 

But when we are always running from one task or goal or place to another, we can often get further away from knowing what we actually feel. You know when you are super busy, with multiple tasks, the last thing you have time for is to stop and see how you are feeling. In the heat of an argument, we rarely stop, and think, gee, I can feel I’m getting angry. 

Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung believes we suffer because we fail to understand and feel the unseen and unheard parts of our psyches. Getting lost in the pursuit of more, better, different, this idea of persistence at all costs, of never giving up, can zap our zest and energy for life right here - in fact, everywhere. 

I have found, more recently, that the beauty found in the peace and contentment of not always desiring, not always grasping, not always yearning,  is far more fulfilling and more satisfying than the feeling we get from actually acquiring something, or even achieving something. This is the Tranquillity or Ataraxia that philosopher Epicurus was so interested in, and in Buddhism, Tranquillity is one of the 7 factors of awakening or one of the 7 precious treasures. One leaves us always wanting more and always living from a place of lack - the other full of the peace, joy, and contentment that the other will always be seeking. 

And, yes, I do not deny that we do learn so much about ourselves and the world around us when we dive deep into things, when we push our bodies, our minds, and our limits - when we try new things and when we challenge our boundaries, and of course, we can only achieve certain things after a great deal of effort and work. That’s true and important… but it also takes great courage and skill to know when it is fear of failure or ego or competition or identity that is keeping us there, that is keeping us going - when perhaps letting go, and giving up is actually what is more helpful - now and in the future. 

For, If we hold on too long, what else will we miss? Maybe that’s what it all comes down to, right? What else will we miss? We don’t live forever, sometimes not long at all. 

Living in San Francisco, I would constantly see entrepreneurs pushing themselves to the brink of destruction – manic, sick, overwhelmed, and stressed, to the point that many did long-term damage to their health, their relationships, and their mental capacities. In doing so, they missed the chance to live in and explore a vibrant, really cool city, the thing that probably took them there in the first place. They struggled to find anything that resembled balance, and it prevented them from having a full life that had many layers. They failed to see that everything connects to everything else - work, vocation, love, health, joy, interests, movement, sleep - and in grasping so tightly to an idea, they left too little room for the other great aspects of life just outside their window. 

We too often associate courage with pushing ourselves, working hard, and making huge sacrifices, but what if we used our courage to motivate us to give up? The courage to foster a deeper awareness to notice that the path we are taking may be harmful to our health, and our relationships. And brave enough to take an unclear path, one that is uncertain, and one less driven by ego and capitalist motives and more driven by values, meaning and purpose. 

It takes tremendous skill to enjoy life wherever you are, to dance in the beauty of all those seemingly insignificant moments. Is it better to give up the pursuit, or at the very least make sure it is a more balanced endeavour, so we can take up all that is already here? Because there is a beautiful life here to be lived, sometimes we just need to give up on all those constructed and ingrained ideas first. Freeing up energy and space along the way for new things - -  for a renewed curiosity, for new tasks, new plans, and a chance to collect new experiences.  

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This piece was originally produced in audio format for the podcast, Sutterfaction. To listen to the full talk and the series, please check out Sutterfaction where you get your podcasts. Stay up to date at evsutter on Instagram and find out about my upcoming talks and workshops, my books and my online program at evansutter.com