Fuck You Happiness
Fuck you money, the north star of many young hustlers, is having enough money to be able to say "fuck you" to an employer or any opportunity for money making that one would otherwise not want to do. Once fuck you money is achieved, one is untethered from wage slavery or the ever-present risk of freelancer burnout and can do whatever the fuck they want.
Fuck you money allows one to pursue their "art" without artistic compromise. It will enable them to focus entirely on their health or spiritual development and move toward the beautiful world their hearts know is possible. Additionally, fuck you money allows one to live a full life of exotic travel, fine foods, and stylish excursions that will make all their Instagram followers envious.
I am not knocking on fuck you money. I want it. You want it. We all want it. I know people who have it, and some of them are cool. In the emerging “coach industrial complex,” where coaches coach aspiring coaches to become coaches, the question du jour goes something like this: If all your financial needs were already met for the rest of your life, what would you choose to do?1 The honest answer to this question isn't to be a coach.
Suppose some societal role that is market-friendly does not emerge as the answer, then something vague like healing themselves or, if they were honest, being wildly hedonistic is the response. The question's real aim is to tease out what brings aliveness. Any precarity with money, real or imagined, brings fear, and when unexamined fear is present, people tend not to do the thing that makes them come alive. Aliveness is the state that encourages one to continue to live despite all the vicissitudes of life. Without aliveness, life persistently whispers, "this is not worthwhile."
Life is worthwhile, and it's time to retire this question. It brings a cascade of too many hypotheticals, and there is a more direct way to tap into aliveness. I suggest all the coaches try this one instead: What would you do if you were guaranteed lifelong happiness starting this moment? To answer this question, one need not engage in mental machinations, imagining millions of dollars in their bank account. Instead, it requires one to feel happy right now.
While most people cannot get millions of dollars right now, many can be happy right now. And they can be happy without a reason. The myth sold to us is we are not good enough as we are, and we need to rush to become more by having more, achieving more, or experiencing more. The myth suggests that we must first attain what we consider the good life, perhaps achieved by fuck you money, before we can experience true happiness. This myth is not true. Happiness does not unfold from the good life; the good life unfolds from happiness.
Choose happiness, and have a new north star: fuck you happiness. Be so happy that you can say fuck you to anything that promises happiness after suggesting you are not good enough. Happiness is the generator function of the good life. It requires effort, but it becomes effortless once the choice is made.
Corollary
I was restless one night and needed fresh air, so I started walking outside. I was ruminating, trying to solve my existential issues through thinking. My thoughts were looped, my emotions stuck, and my aliveness oppressed. I was unhappy. I am sick of feeling unhappy. I decided: I am going to will myself to happiness now. I committed to walking the rest of the block, which was around a five-minute walk, internally saying the affirmation "I am happy" in a way that invoked happiness in my body.
In an affirmative rampage, I bombarded my body with happy vibes, and it worked. I felt happy. Around three minutes, I could not help but want to skip, so I skipped. I was a grown man skipping at night, and it felt good. I wanted to throw my arms in the air as if I had won something, so I did, because I did win something. I won a chance to live this life.
I enjoy being happy, yet I've devoted too much of my life to pursuits that don't bring me happiness, mistakenly believing they would. I'm perhaps the greatest fool I know, but thankfully, I have chosen to be a happier one.
This question is paraphrased from Daniel Schmachtenberger’s Dharma Inquiry questions.
Elaborating a bit deeper, this is a form of "Metta meditation". One of the most famous examples is Ram Dass, who often used the phrase "I am Loving Awareness". This is not just a catch-phrase or a statement of his spiritual attainment, but a meditation instruction, which anyone can use and "connect to" and cultivate the feeling of "Loving Awareness". I've used it a number of times and facilitated meditations with it and can attest that it works really well.
On another note, I just started reading Christopher Wallace's new book "Near Enemies of the Truth" and found myself highlighting this text:
"Everyone knows that the spiritual traditions of the East teach that happiness is found within, not in quantifiable attributes like followers and financial figures, but that idea remains hollow unless someone can show you exactly how to find happiness within yourself. You must reconsider and replace some deep-seated assumptions and subtle misunderstandings to clear the way to the wellspring of well-being within."
Having practiced meditation a lot, I agree with Christopher. There was a point at which there was the insight, that through the transformation and insights that meditation practice facilitates, my life is starting to become much happier, even though outside circumstances are not so different. Here I am not using the narrow definition of happiness as "Metta" or some kind of emotion, but a general sense of wellbeing and satisfaction arising more and more just from the fact of being alive, but also in regards to various things in my life. I also saw the same insight arising in my wife a couple of months ago, during a home meditation retreat, without us talking about it at all prior to that. There is something here!
I'm right here with you.