The Silver Bullet Problem Of Adulthood

This is a good video from Laurie Santos, who is the “science of happiness” lady and I believe is in bed with Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast network:

It’s mostly about ways to be happy, which is always a fraught term to me. I think the goal should be “contentment,” but who the hell am I, right? Most of this video revolves around social comparison — which we injected with steroids around 2011 with at-scale cell phones and social apps — and how you should avoid it. And you should avoid it, because lots of people whose lives you think are great have absolute bullshit seeping out of every corner of their existence, and if you don’t believe me — just remember that the upper middle class, in some ways, is the biggest prison of them all.

One element of the video is about “miswanting,” which I think is a term Santos invented herself, or stole from Daniel Gilbert, who is not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers but rather a semi-famous academic. You can probably inherently figure out what the term means, but “miswanting” is when you think you want something, and if you get that thing, it will change everything. But then you do get that thing and it’s like, oh, well, aspects of life still suck? I guess it wasn’t the thing after all.

The most notable example there is money. “If I had more money, things would be easier and better.” That’s literally almost never true.

The example we don’t talk about, but is also true? Motherhood.

Little girls spend their entire lives being primed, pumped, and trained to be mothers. And then they get it, and a kid who can’t talk yet shits on their shirt, and they feel pressure to keep up with some Mormom mom influencer on The Gram. They’re actually more depressed, and support runs out at six months, and the solution in many minds is, “Well, I guess we could have a second kid?”

I can tell you as someone that chases the infertility drain —

— literally one of the only ways to cope with all that is to realize that while I’m sure motherhood is great and the best job of all-time and all that, motherhood doesn’t save anyone. From the 150 examples I can think of, I’d say in a lot of cases it makes the person worse for the short-term, better for the long-term. It’s not a case of “miswanting” per se because I still think a lot of women want it and are happy when they get it, but … it’s a cousin of “miswanting.”

The exercise portion of the video, which is said by everyone, is good. I need to get back to lifting heavy. I want to do that ASAP.

In short: avoid social comparison and stop thinking any one thing could be a silver bullet. I do both all the time, and when I do both, I tend to be miserable and want to drown myself in IPAs. So, I need to stop — and so do you.