Happiness is exhausting, isn’t it?
Like, the word itself feels heavy. It shows up everywhere—on bumper stickers, in self-help books, on your Instagram feed—but the more we obsess over it, the more impossible it feels to actually hold onto.
Maybe that’s the problem. We’ve turned happiness into this finish line, this bright neon sign blinking YOU’LL GET HERE SOMEDAY IF YOU TRY HARD ENOUGH. But have you noticed that the harder you chase it, the faster it seems to disappear?
It’s like one of those claw machines. You’re staring at the prize, maneuvering the joystick like your life depends on it, and just when you think you’ve got it, the claw drops your happiness into the pit of existential despair. Game over. Try again.
I used to think happiness was about milestones. You know, the usual suspects—get the job, find the person, hit the target, cash the check. And for a while, I bought into it. I’d chase the goal, hit the goal, and then… nothing.
That’s the thing nobody tells you: achieving happiness feels great for about five minutes. Then it evaporates, and you’re left wondering why the hell you’re still not satisfied.
I think about this one time I was sitting in my car, staring at the check from a business I’d just sold. It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life, and you know what I felt?
Hungry.
Not metaphorically hungry. Literally hungry. I was just sitting there thinking, What am I going to eat for dinner? Not exactly the life-altering moment of joy I’d expected.
That’s when it hit me. Happiness wasn’t in that check. It wasn’t in the achievement or the milestone or the damn claw machine. It was somewhere else—somewhere a lot smaller and weirder and harder to pin down.
Like the next day, when I was messing around in the kitchen with my kids, making pancakes and laughing because one of them flipped a pancake straight onto the floor. That moment? Pure happiness. No neon sign, no claw machine, no expectations. Just joy, right there in the mess.
But here’s the catch: nobody wants to hear that. People don’t like when you say happiness isn’t about the big stuff. They want it to be profound, meaningful, something they can put on a vision board.
Honestly, I think we’ve been conned. Somewhere along the way, happiness got rebranded as a product. It’s a cottage industry now. Buy this thing. Read this book. Follow these five steps. It’s all bullshit.
Happiness isn’t a product. It’s not even a goal. It’s an accident—a happy little side effect of living your life. The problem is, we’ve made it performative. You’re not just supposed to feel it; you’re supposed to curate it, package it, and make it look good for the audience.
And that’s where we screw it up.
Because the second you start trying to “achieve” happiness, you lose it. It’s like sand slipping through your fingers. The tighter you squeeze, the faster it goes.
I’m not saying happiness isn’t real. It’s real, all right. But it’s not what you think it is. It’s not big. It’s not loud. It doesn’t come with confetti and fireworks.
It’s eating pancakes off the floor with your kids. It’s hearing a stupid joke and laughing so hard you snort. It’s sitting on the couch with someone you love, not even talking, just being there.
That’s the stuff nobody puts on Instagram because it’s not flashy enough. But it’s everything.
You know what else? You don’t have to be happy all the time. This idea that you’re supposed to be constantly content, like some zen master floating through life? Also bullshit. Life’s hard. Some days suck. And that’s okay.
The goal isn’t to feel good all the time. It’s to stop making yourself miserable chasing something you think you’re supposed to feel.
So, if you’ve been beating yourself up because you’re not “happy enough,” here’s your permission to stop.
Let the claw machine win.
Happiness will show up when you least expect it—probably when you’re not even paying attention. And it won’t look like what you thought it would. It’ll look like pancakes and bad jokes and sitting in the car wondering what’s for dinner.
If you want to hear me ramble more about this, I said a lot of the same stuff (but with a little more polish) in this video.
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