Humanity should strive for happiness

Being happy is awesome.

It’s one of my favorite philosophical topics because it’s practical. A deep conversation about happiness can quickly improve our lives, which rarely happens with other big themes. Sharing thoughts on the purpose of work is nice, but they are slow to implement. Conversations on living in a simulation or the true nature of free will are instead pure intellectual masturbation and very likely completely useless: they lead nowhere.

I love happiness, so here is an ode to it.

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?Nominal definitions differ, but if truly experienced, there is a common understanding of what happiness is. Here I will refer to it as the positive, enduring state of being in peace of mind, at ease with yourself and the world.”Enduring” is a critical component because it differentiates it from other shortlasting feelings. Excitement is a temporary surge of positive emotion, almost like happiness on steroids. Joy is a softer, sweeter excitement. Pride is what you get when you accomplish something, but you will likely fall back to your baseline level shortly after.Of course, happiness is influenced by all this stuff. Unless you’re bipolar, if you often experience excitement, joy, and pride, you likely have a life infrastructure that facilitates your well-being and happiness.

For a better perspective, I am putting the most despiteful, negative state of a human (presumably, just to get the idea, depression?) at 1 on a scale from 1 to 10. Happiness to me is anywhere between 8 and 10. Excitement, why not, 12/10. It’s like being pushed over the limit by something else (magic mushrooms or the moment you meet a beloved one after months), while happiness can be fully internal to your normal state.

To me, happiness is a range because there are things that raise the bar and genuinely make you happier for a sustained amount of time. I have a high level of dopamine and I am happier than the average Joe. Yet, if I stay with my best friends in Bali working remotely during workdays and doing adventures on weekends, I can reassure you I will be happier than my average natural baseline.

HUMANITY SHOULD STRIVE FOR HAPPINESSHappiness can be the platform upon which individuals build their lives and upon which humanity can build a worthwhile civilization. Imagine building an intergalactic, technologically advanced but miserable society: would that be the equivalent of chickens on rockets?

I am saying platform as the foundation because, on its own, happiness could be indeed quite sufficient to live a life worth living. It’s hard to go against someone who is fully (and genuinely) happy and convince him/her to do something else.

You could bring up the argument that a life without aiming at a grandiose goal is a life wasted. Perhaps a life not maximized indeed, but simply because you can do both. In fact, I would argue that if humanity achieved a higher baseline level of happiness we would accelerate our prosperity.

I am not sure on the individual level. It’s true that many over-achievers are people who are partially aware of their inner motivations and never solved their traumas. If you read the latest Elon Musk biography you’ll know what I am talking about, but I guess you can easily imagine.Don’t get me wrong, I believe (and hope for myself) that happy people can achieve huge milestones for the planet. I just think that it’s easier to work 80 hours per week if you’re unhappy and try to show the world how strong you are compared to not giving a fuck about other opinions because you are already happy.

But I am sure on the collective level. So much energy is wasted by unhappy people seeking toxic addictions and behaviors, with disastrous multiplier effects on society. Unhappy school teachers are a perfect blueprint for how to destroy the talent, passion, and creativity of the human population from its roots.

PEOPLE DON’T THINK MUCH ABOUT HAPPINESSOne of my favorite questions is “What makes you happy?” and I often receive hesitant answers. This is surprising to me because I would have thought that someone should know immediately. I mean, don’t you immediately know if you’re happy or not?

If you ask me what kind of food I like, I know straight away. Sure, I might be uncertain whether I prefer eating pizza five days in a row or sushi, but that’s about it. Same thing with happiness. It’s something I consume every day (or it could be that the opposite is something I consume every day, and therefore I can derive it).

Other times I get a deferred answer, ie. “what makes me happy is when I achieve something”. Ignoring the external locus, it’s again surprising that usually happiness is associated with an end goal (which might never arrive), rather than the journey. But then, it’s the reason why I am unsurprised that most people are not happy.

PEOPLE CONFLATE HAPPINESS WITH ZERO-STRESSHappiness doesn’t necessarily equal comfort, although I admit I do enjoy my fair share of hygge, reading in front of a fireplace in a cozy room while it’s snowing outside.

You can be happy while doing something challenging and being under immense stress, as long as you want to put yourself in that situation. Gym is an easy example.Training properly can be awful, literally being unable to breathe at some moments. But underneath it, you are happy that you are pushing yourself.

Same thing at work. If it genuinely makes sense to you, pushing hard and being under stress for a sustained period of time can contribute to your happiness. I am currently at EF (a talent investor), working 65 hours per week, and feeling professionally quite stressed about not cracking the startup equation yet. But I wanted to put myself in here and I am happy to go through this journey.Would I be happy if I kept this rhythm 365 days a year? Hell no.Do such sprints every now and then help keep my happiness baseline high? Totally.

MY ENDGAME IS HAPPINESSI try to make everything I do aligned with what makes me genuinely happy.Genuinely because even if I enjoy scrolling on Instagram for half an hour, I know it’s just fake comfort and addiction.

I am lucky enough to have a high baseline, I enjoy the world so much that I like to stay here as much as possible. Thus, entrepreneurship to enable a longer lifespan for everybody is the biggest purpose in my life. Alone it’s not enough to make me happy.

If I were to maximize my primary purpose I’d need to work 24/7, which would make my life miserable, which would nullify my intention to live forever because I don’t want to live forever working 24/7.However, it’s easy to have a balance if you can compromise.

I will never fully dive into some things I crazily enjoy. If you follow my work on Instagram you’ll see I am a big Tumblr-style photography nerd. I still do it for fun, but not as much as I would want. I have been playing the guitar for years, same thing.

I renounce to a lot of time with my dad, I just can’t live in a small town in Italy. I try to travel there as much as possible and I hope I don’t regret the decision.

A big part of my happiness is enjoying the little things. I love cooking. Listening to Pink Floyd. Spending 4€ in a hipster coffee shop. Reading at night. It brings me happiness to be in control and have optionality on what to do next. It brings me happiness to be grateful to be luckily born with privileges I hope one day everybody will have.Happiness, how an amazing thing.