Why You’ll Never Be Happy

Allow me to begin with a disclaimer. I will not state or imply the reason you’ll never be happy is due to a lack of ‘goals’ you’ll achieve in life. The same goes for the idea that you just need to learn how to be ‘content.’

I will not state or imply these things because both are meaningless, and equally so.

There is nothing you can ‘do’ to bring some lasting sense of happiness or peace. Trying to achieve goals or heed contentment are different types of ‘doings.’ And ‘doings’, well, they’ve got you to where you are now.

To understand why you’ll never be happy with your life, you must begin by understanding the fundamental nature of your life—understanding how your life is nothing more than a series of ‘doings’ that always lead you nowhere. But, don’t worry: I’ll do the heavy lifting for you. It is facile to deconstruct your life because it is a very simple existence. In fact, your life is identical to everyone you have ever met, seen, or heard of.

From the moment you awake, till you sleep, your every thought, desire, and action is done in the name of one God.

Pleasure.

In fact, unless involuntary collapsing due to exhaustion is the only way you sleep, even your sleep is done to serve this God. Because your sleep is how you refuel to begin the next day’s pleasure chases.

Is this really true? Please, don’t take my word of it.

Let’s walk through your day.

Perhaps you start the day with a healthy breakfast. Why? Because it’s healthy, of course! And why do you want to be healthy? Well, because then you’ll feel good, and, look good, of course! And why do you want to feel good and look good? Well… because “good” is good!

Perhaps then you commute to your workplace and put in some ‘hard hours.’ Why? Well, as well as ensuring basic sustenance, your job funds your expenses. Expenses in the form of a nice home, high-quality food, flashy clothes, etc. Fair enough — everyone needs food and water. But, those other things: Why do you need a certain type of home, food, and clothes? Well, because you like those things! Like your healthy breakfast, they engender a feeling of ‘good’ within you.

Perhaps you’re now growing tired of my juvenile questions. But, at least the reason you do anything and everything has become apparent.

You want to feel ‘good.’ You want pleasure.

Right. Makes sense. This is what every human is doing. The nature of their ‘doings’ may vary, but the same outcome is always being pursued — pleasure.

Nothing about the pursuit of pleasure is ‘good’ or ‘bad.’

There is, however, a problem. An elephant-sized problem. A nuclear bomb.

You don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Every thought, desire, and action is done in the name of pleasure, and, once an outcome materialises — whether it be what you desired, or not— you, invairaby, end up in the same position.

Tying up your laces for the next chase — the next pursuit of pleasure.

And this is every day of your life. From the moment you awake, till you sleep.

You may, understandably, respond by saying: “So what?”

Indeed, one cannot deny your, albeit cyclical, life is sprinkled with moments of a thing you call ‘happiness.’ The compliment you receive for your fine clothes — clothes your job paid for. The admiration you receive from your peers for eating healthy — for your enviable discipline and body.

So what if the joy from these things is fleeting? So what if it only provokes another chase for pleasure? Can you not just spend the entirety of your life chasing more, and greater, pleasures?

Of course you can. I will repeat: There is nothing ‘good’ or ‘bad’ about such a life.

But such a life comes with a price. This price has no numerical figure. The price of living such a life… is your life.

Endless chases. Endless anxieties. Endless dissatisfaction.

Endless suffering.

Something pulses deep within a human — a deep refusal. A total and utter rejection that this is the way his life is going to be lived. That, till the day he dies, he will forever be stuck in a maze of chases. That he will endlessly circle the same roundabout. That he will never arrive anywhere.

That he will die having wasted his life chasing things that never lasted.

If ‘happiness’ is what a human truly desired, the world and its endless avenues for pleasure, would consist only of humans riding a permanent high. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t Because ‘happiness’ is nothing more than a pain balm a human applies to temporarily soothe himself. To temporarily numb his misery.

Because the human who lives his life chasing pleasure lives in a default state of misery.

Teetering on the edge of hopelessness, he looks for moments of ‘happiness’ as a form of respite. And, when he experiences its anaesthetic effects, he becomes hooked. He chases it like a crack addict. He convinces himself that ‘happiness’ is what he wants in his life.

Tell me: Does a cancer patient want chemotherapy, or do they want for their cancer to be eradicated?

The human becomes so accustomed to his dissatisfactory state that he has, in essence, given up. It is why he tells himself, and others, that all he wants is to live a ‘happy life.’

I do not mean to egg on those who cross their arms and puff their chests to pretentiously declare: “I have no interest in being happy. I just want to do X with my life.”

The ones who say such things are lying. They trumpet such things to sound contrarian for the sake of sounding contrarian—to seem special or unconventional. In truth, they are as hooked on pleasure as everyone else . They just chase it in a more roundabout it, and won’t admit it.

A question may now be itching at the tip of your tongue: “If not pleasure, then what? If I don’t spend my life pursuing things I think will make me feel ‘good,’ what else should I do?”

I will never advise you to do, or abstain, from anything. Operating from such a framework is what you have spent your entire life doing. Where has it gotten you?

Whether you consider your perpetual pleasure chasing to be a product of societal conditioning, human biology, or both, you are where you are. Your life is what it is.

Let’s go back to your question: If I don’t live my life chasing pleasure, what should I do with it?

There are 100 doors. The answer lies behind one of them. If you’ve opened 99 of them, you can know, with certainty that the answer will lie behind the next one.

The one who ceases pleasure chasing after realising his life for what it is will know what to do with it. Because he has opened 99 doors, and, behind each one of them, he found only nothing.

Because there was nothing to find.

You’ll never be happy because you have confused happiness with something else. You have mixed your words. You have confused the painkiller for the permanent cure.

You won’t save yourself from drowning by attempting to empty the ocean.