If you’re not happy now, getting your dream job, selling your company for millions or finding a new partner won’t make you happy. There isn’t anything wrong with those three things and I greatly encourage all of them. But you can’t look for them to solve all your problems and make you happy if you start off unhappy. The data says Millionaires aren’t any happier than the average person. Are the studies lying? I’m sure a extra million would make me happier. Or am I lying? Will achieving all these goals and dream really make me happier? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Don’t sit around and say you’ll be finally happy when you achieved that or this. You won’t be. Once you sell your company for 10 million, soon that will be nothing and you’ll need a $100 million exit to be happy. The concept I’m bringing up is the baseline of happiness. We all want to be at the baseline of happiness. This is optimal. When we achieve a goal we will go above the baseline, but not for long. Soon that will be become the baseline or norm and we’ll need a new goal to make us happy. That’s why millionaires aren’t happier than the average person. Even people who win the lottery are only temporarily happier. But soon living with millions will be the norm and you won’t be any happier than you were with a quarter or 1/10 of that.
We look for a scapegoat, something to blame on our happiness on. It may be an object, dream or person we’ve been saying is the reason we’re not happy. Once we get our object, dream or person we just find a new scapegoat. This is of course unsustainable. It leads to greater and greater dissatisfaction because we realize how much we don’t have.
If there is an initial unhappiness, achieving our scapegoat will not make us happy.
Go out and build your company, get your dream job and find the person you’ve been missing. But don’t expect that any of those things will solve you problems, if you do, your problems will just get deeper. Become happy with yourself right now and just remember these wise words from Steve Jobs:
The journey is the reward.
It all at the end of the day comes to down to right now, this present moment. Don’t concentrate on the past or even the future. Don’t worry about being able to perform at your best possible a few weeks from now, don’t worry if the decision you made months ago was the right decision. Just focus on the present moment. The only factor you can control is how much effort you put into anything. If you focus on what you need to do right now, you will become the best possible person you can.



Nicholas Montgomery is a 17 year-old technology blogger and entrepreneur in Toronto, Canada. He has been featured on CP24, CTV News, CityTV, and is the "Technology Expert for The Marilyn Denis Show on CTV 








{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
You are daed on with this. In my opinion, happiness is directly correlated to the expectations you set in life, both personal and professional. Based on your priorities in life, expectations for priorities should naturally increase over time.
But being content with the current state is a challenge for many, including myself. Thanks for sharing!