Since no completed Todo list does not lead to long term happiness, what does? If we start with Journey and Process > Outcome formula, we will be then facing a question: “what one should be actually working on, what one should devote his life to?”. Stoics have explained this concept very well. One should work on their Internals, on their Virtues. Because your internals can’t be ever taken from you, unlike your externals. You can lose a job, important client, your wealth, or worse you can lose your health or someone close to you in a blink of an eye. All these objects are external objects, objects outside of our circle of control. By focusing on our virtues, we can truly devote our life to wisdom and life long learning that brings so much satisfaction and is not dependent on short term dopamine spikes externals produce. We can truly become rich. Defeat (befriend) envy, jealousy, anxieties, fear, and greed. For the last three years, I have been thinking what those virtues are so they are universal and timeless. So they don’t change with the coming family, with becoming a father or very successful by the conventional measures. Here is the list of virtues I have over the years nourished and settle on …

I strongly believe in the Process > Outcome formula. Process (internals) over Outcome (externals) is a path towards life’s happiness. It is a way how to enjoy the journey of life while maintaining our own happiness no matter what the outside world will throw upon us. It is also very liberating feeling, because suddenly we rely on the journey rather than outcome that is many times outside of our control. We can start becoming more present, more aware of what is going on and not being lost in our thoughts about what will happen next, how it will all end, what we will do next, instead of enjoying what is happening now – giving our best. This Process > Outcome is also helping those workaholics out there with one important thing: that todolist will never end and no single todolist once completed will bring you long term happiness. Why? Because after that one ToDo list, new one comes. It is like hydra. You cut one list, two more lists grow. From that moment on, it is never ending battle for completion with short-term dopamine spikes, exhaustion of your endocrine system a never ending battle. By internalising this formula and knowing your why, we can become more content and happy. We can actually start enjoying the process over outcome.  

Have you ever woke up feeling, “omg, I would love to have nothing on my todolist for the rest of my life”. I am sure most of you did not. Why? Because thats fuc*ing boring. We are ultimate problem solving machines and problems = struggle = struggle creates gems and by solving them our life grows richer and we have better stories to tell. They are natural part of life, the life truth. Our goal is to struggle well and enjoy the journey, because there is no final arrival, no ultimate goal that would make us forever happy. There is just the journey. The process. Enjoy the process, the moments, goals acomplishments wont make you happy.

There is an ultimate question towards own happiness. That question is actually simple: “Why are you doing it?”. Answer to that question will lead towards who are you doing it for? Answer to that question should lead you towards how much of what are you doing you are doing actually, truly, really really for yourself :)? Because many times, we are actually taking on too much and being our worst judge seeking approvals of others. That does not sound like the path towards our own happiness. That sounds like a path towards making happy everybody around us happy except us. But if we are not happy, if we are doing things for wrong reasons, reasons we do not even understand and are simply driven by them, we cant never be truly happy. And if we are not happy, everyone around us will sooner or later be effected by our moods, by our state. You can pretend happiness only for so long but eventually you will crack and become miserable. Some people then treat it by more work, more beating, some by alcohol, some by physical pain (why do you think ultra-trails were invented :). We choose different artificial “cures” to our internal pain, mask them well but actually they are not cures. They are just patches, Ibuprofen for our mind and body because many times we do not understand root causes of our suffering. Of our own beating. But we can turn it around. We can start asking the right questions and honestly, we need help with that. We need right questions to be asked, because questions are the answers. Starting with why and for who is a good start on this root cause healing journey. It might be scary at first, decisions we all have to take along this journey need courage, but eventually it will lead to our true happiness. And that is worth every bit of courage we have.

Many times we are lost in our approval flywheel not doing things for the right "why". There is actually a great testing question you can ask  anyone to find out, if they do things truly for themself or for approval of others. I call this testing question "approval junkie test". Here is the simple question:

I have written a short post about understanding your motives. In that post I have written about  the idea of understanding why we do things we do. Are we doing them to get approval from others or are we truly doing them for us. Understanding this is in my opinion one of the keys to happiness. So why is this post any different then the one I have written? I want to talk about one strong addiction. Addiction to approval. At some point in our life all parents and closest friends made a mistake. Many times not intentionally. Mistake that hit us deeply. Mistake that defined us for the eternity and beyond. Mistake we have stored deep down into our bone morrow. From that moment on, our insecurity has been stored there and has been manifested through approvals we seek. Difficult childhood, not getting enough love or attention? Psychologically abusive father that has never been satisfied with anything you have done? Not smart enough, not fast enough? All those emotions are stored deeply inside us and as we grow up they manifest in all our insecurities. In all approvals we seek from others. 

When you start any endeavor being passionate  is not enough. Passion is just an emotion. Emotions just come and go like yearly seasons. You need to understand deeply why your passion is important to you and ideally how it fulfills your true core beliefs and values. If the passion is linked to your core values and beliefs and gives you some sense of purpose, it is easier (but not easy) to be resilient. And when you connect the resiliency and your passion together, you have one of many formulas for success One of many but very strong one. Now the biggest mystery for you to solve in this life reincarnation is to find out what your passion is. Everything else would come with it and you will get eventually answer to the deep philosophical question we all ask: "what is our purpose?". Maybe it is to find our passion and serve good that is bigger then us. To search for our purpose through our passion. 

Living in the present moment is a noble thing. It is definitely better said then done because our attention is constantly stolen by our modern life reactivity, our fears and insecurities. One way we can face it is with conscious awarenes of what is truly happening around us. It used to be too abstract for me to access present moment just by thinking it is a present moment. I had to find intent first and then, I truly started to access this magical moment. How? Simply by explaining what is going on in plain words. When it rained, I described that rain drops are hitting ground with certain cadence, splashing when hitting the ground. When light bulb was shining, I have in my head described that a stream of fotons are dropping at my eye bulb with different intensity. These short descriptions acted as a booting procedures of a computer for me to then access the present moment. After that it was easy to live the moment at least for a while. So in order to access the present moment, you can use this "booting procedure" as your intent. It can do wonders.

From the time I was 13, I became obsessed with work and self-improvement. I have found computer programming early on as a field I could have utilised both my creativity and fight my insecurities. By being able to know more than people at my age, I have felt better for myself. It is a funny feeling. You know you are still dumb shit, but everybody around you thinks you are this wiz kid. Over the years, I have moved from programming to business, from business to trading, from trading to management and leadership building companies and projects from ground up. I am proud of my achievements, but I have also stretched it too much, too far. By thinking I am invincible, I have made myself a success junkie. A plan junkie. A framework and principles junkie. Some people in my shoes, would be the most happy people on earth, but I have to admit, I payed the price. 

Pain is a great teacher. Both physical and psychological pain gives you clues. It teaches you couple of important points: