Short reflection on happiness and vanity

Jonah Hill and Phil Stutz during the documentary

Besides his enlightening description of his “Tools”, what actually stuck with me was his unofficial “breakdown” of the mental health approach. According to him, 85% of your mental health status is due your physical condition and diet. The remaining 15% can be addressed through psychological and spiritual means.

I then connected this information with another sentence, heard from Slavoj Žižek-Jordan Peterson debate, which I highly recommend as below.

Slavoj Žižek mentions his basic dogma about happiness as follows: “Happiness should be treated as a necessary byproduct. If you focus on it, you’re lost. It comes as a byproduct of you working for a [meaningful] cause”

I could resonate with both definition and and combine them. I totally agree that happiness is never the goal, but a byproduct of working for something meaningful. The real question then, is not how to be happy, but how to find something meaningful to you.

Unfortunately, there’s no direct answer or tutorial for that. What I realized is that if you sit down and think, you’ll get nowhere. Then (again, engineering approach), I took in consideration the inductive method.

We don’t know what we want, we think we know, and probably the greatest punishment is receiving exactly what we think we want, with a great disappointment as a result. The reason is because we probably don’t want anything specific. What we want, is working, keeping ourselves occupied, to work on something meaningful. The destination is the process you set up to reach happiness, not that one thing that supposedly gives you happiness.

Combining with Stutz’ estimation, then why not starting with the ground work. Start by working out.

Working out, like happiness, isn’t effective when done for the sake of working out, for vanity. It’s ineffective if the sole goals are having a nice body or being fit. Working out becomes effective when you engage in a sport or activity with specific goals, embedded in the sport itself. For example, I never managed to be fit, until I started Calisthenics/Street Workout a couple of years ago. In this sport, I have goals, embedded in it, like learning handstand, or pull-ups. The goals, the meaning of the sport itself, lie in achieving something that you were not able to do before. It’s the most basic form of self-improvement. We can even say, these embedded “micro”-goals are the meaning, or give meaning, to the sport.

If you work hard to achieve these goals, you’ll oscillate between success and failure. As a byproduct, you’ll notice your body changing and gain better control over your physical self. Little achievements will make you feel happy, knowing you’re working towards a meaningful goal (handstand or whatever the goals your sport set for you). A fitter and healthier body will be a necessary byproduct to this.

Now, let’s briefly touch on diet. Again, it only works if it’s not pursued for vanity. Food fuels our body, we should nourish it well for long-term health rather than short-term gratification. The key is to optimize your diet according to your work-life balance and workout routine. Listen to your body, research, consult with nutritionists, and find what best suits you. Once you do, your body will naturally crave healthy fuel.

This is the groundwork:

1. Shift focus from the goal to the process

2. Make your workout meaningful to maintain consistency

3. Find a long-term sustainable diet that suits you

The key is moving away from vanity towards a deeper connection with yourself. And that’s already 85% of the journey.

Regarding the remaining 15%, I firmly believe that the spiritual self is the glue between your physical and intellectual selves.

I find guided meditation particularly useful in my case. Being ‘aware’ of the present moment and maintaining conscious control of my steps along the process I’ve set up helps me to not feel lost, a victim of time. The more you practice awareness, the more aware you become. It’s like working out, the more repetitions you do, the more your body records the movement.

In this realm too, find what spiritually suits you and don’t get too attached to any step of the process. As our personality is dynamic, it’s totally fine to change preferences and ideas.

This is my approach as an engineer and a student of human nature: break down the complex issue and tackle the single parts with creativity and no prejudice. And don’t forget the glue! I am a fan of the underestimated, boring groundwork and of setting efficient processes, instead of blindly walking towards a goal. One step back, understand how the machine works, and try. Mistakes are the greatest source of learning if approached with a critical mindset.

Be ready to be wrong more than right.

Be ready to embrace discomfort and unknown.

Be ready to constructively criticize yourself and be your own partner.

Be ready to be criticized by people around you.

Happiness, is the mindful pursue of happiness itself.

Stay tuned!