Happy people don't care

Unhappiness is when you worry about not having something. Depression is realizing you’ll never have it. And freedom is understanding you never needed it in the first place. Humans are comprised of emotion and intellect, so it’s easy to think you need to change something when you’re unhappy. Society always pushes us outward, never inward, because that benefits them. Unhappy people are shaped by the conditions of their environment. They have no shock absorption. Every bump in the road feels like a boulder. Their fight or flight response gets triggered by things that should blow over like a breeze. The Doordash arrives late. The person not wearing a mask. You missed your revenue targets. The easy thing to do is put up resistance, but it’s way harder to relax into the moment. Happy people cultivate indifference to things outside of their control. Instead of turning their discernment to the outside world from the ego, they direct it inward against it. Since starting Lawtrades I’ve lived below the poverty line and became wealthy more times than I can remember. This time last year, me and my co founder reduced our salaries to $35k/yr and let go of 70% of our employees the year before. I should’ve been angry but I wasn’t. I wasn’t concerned with success because it never occurred to me that success was even possible. I was just exhilarated from experiencing my first taste of freedom. You can’t win by fighting. The very thing that fights, that resists, is the thing standing in the way of your happiness. Put another way, the degree to which you resist is directly proportional to your suffering. I am perfectly happy with everything as it is. I am happy with misery, poverty, and death. I am also happy with wealth and psychological fulfillment. I eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired. I don’t take sides. I have no preferred outcome. I get to eat at good restaurants. And I haven’t accidentally clicked on a banner ad in 10 years. If I lose it all tomorrow, I’ll be fine. Because sometimes, not wanting something is as good as having it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit raad.substack.com