The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation, because occupation means pre-occupation; and the pre-occupied person is neither happy nor unhappy, but simply alive and active. That is why it is necessary to happiness that one should be tired. - George Bernard Shaw

Why is the average person more miserable than ever? Think about it. They have never had more access to life changing information. They have never had more ways to make money, get into the shape they want to be in, or build a group of friends. It is all just a few clicks away… Yet they are still miserable.

The reason? No one ever taught them to see opportunity where everyone else sees a problem. Simple as that. Everyone plays the same game with the same tools. The average person only sees the problems. Winners see opportunities and solutions. Bringing you an antidote to an unhappy life. The negative? The majority will read it and change nothing… The positive? Less competition for you.

1. Clear head

After talking with thousands of people online… It is crystal clear that a clear head is now rarer than anything else. Seriously. It is impossible to deny that we have an epidemic of mental health problems. The reason? Since early childhood you were given the tools you should have never been given. Think short-form content and brainrot YouTube videos (think MrBeast). There is a good chance that you don’t even know better.

Reality is simple. You don’t have patience. You don’t have an attention span. You don’t have the ability to focus. What happens when you don’t have any of those three? You can’t change your life, and neither can you help yourself. They are the baseline.

The good news? It is not your fault. That is how you have been programmed. The bad news? It is your job to fix it. At this point, we are deeply convinced that unplugging yourself and changing those behaviors is the first step toward the life you want to live. The best part? It is not that hard. You want to replace those sources with anything less stimulating. Reading a good book, going for a walk, or just doing… Nothing.

How do you actually do it?

Less algorithms.
Stop multitasking.
No dopamine stacking
- This means doing two heavy dopamine things at the same time. Pick one… Or even better, neither.
Take it a step further - get something like RescueTime (or anything similar that gives you a full overview) and track where your time goes. Whatever doesn’t fit your picture of the life you want… Delete it. One week is all it takes to get a clear picture.
Read a clear mind is the unfair advantage of the next decade and start with the mindset rewiring workbook.

2. Discover your purpose (what would you do for free?)

Purpose is something we get asked about a lot, and yet we still have never found the right definition for it. It is so subjective that there is a good chance everyone reading this will have their own version of what purpose means. Some associate it with a feeling of aliveness and being able to recall the moments you felt the most present. Others associate it with going back to childhood and having a sense of freedom. When you were able to pursue (and find) whatever you wanted. Paul Graham might have the best one:

I would not want to work on anything that I didn’t want to take over my life.

It might sound unintuitive, but finding something you are passionate about and falling in love with it is one of the most freeing experiences you will ever have. You know what you are doing is the right thing, and you can’t get tired of it. It just feels right.

The truth? Most people around you will never experience it. They don’t even think about what they are passionate about. And even if they get a glimpse of it… They never fully embrace it. Why? Because they are too busy trying to fit in and please the people around them. Betraying themselves and never fully embracing who they are. This is exactly why most people around you are unhappy and miserable. They never get a sense of why they are here or what their purpose is.

Mostly it comes down to two things

They tried to find their purpose by thinking it would come to them by playing defense (it doesn’t work that way)
They never tried anything beyond what they were told they should do

Is the point simply not clicking for you? Ask yourself what you would do for free. There is a good chance your answer might be just there.

3. Your mission? Choose it

Keep in mind. Mission is not the same as purpose. Purpose signals what makes you feel alive. Mission is a bit different because it is not a feeling but actually something you choose that aligns with who you are. When it comes to mission, the story is the same as with purpose. Most people simply never find it… Those who do find it set their priorities (mission) wrong. Getting a Lambo. The fancy watch. The apartment overlooking the marina. What happens next? They are successful with their mission. To a point they get enough of that money and realize that their mission is wrong.

The mission has to be something bigger. It has to be something with no ceiling. It has to be the thing that pulls you back every time you fly high and lose yourself. This is where you have to be clear. Your mission is not something vague. Neither is it something you can’t act on because it is not clearly defined. It has to be part of who you are. It is your identity, and it has to be authentic to who you are.

This is why working under a fake mission (most people around you) makes you feel tired. Not just tired. The work itself starts to feel meaningless. You can see the pattern here. What happens when you are working on something that feels meaningless? You become desperate. Desperation? It leads to unhappiness. Unhappiness leads to a permanent feeling of being stuck.

This is why it is crucial to have a defined mission. Something you genuinely believe in and that perfectly aligns with your priorities in life. Want to test yourself? All you have to do is write one sentence. One sentence that clearly outlines what your mission is. If you cannot do it… It means you don’t have one yet.

Purpose vs. mission (how you tell the difference)

Purpose is discovered (it is internal). The best way to put it would be that it gives you a sense of belonging and a feeling of being alive.
Mission is chosen. You have chosen it yourself and have full control to act on it and measure yourself against it.

This is exactly why you see so many people who know their purpose (they know what makes them feel good) but can’t stick to the thing that will move them forward. On the other side, you have people who are mission driven and go all out… But somewhere along the way they realize that the work they do is meaningless. One without the other doesn’t work. Purpose is just a feeling without a mission, and the mission is just a grind without purpose.

4. Build your tribe (or you will never find it)

Surreal nighttime procession painting. — Jules De Balincourt’s work.

Reality is that you will never find your tribe. You will have to build one. What do we mean by that? The chances of ending up in a top group surrounded by the exact people you want to be around, without already being one of them? Minimal. In 98% of cases you have to earn your way into the room by showing others that you are actually… Worth it. Once that part is done, and if you have played your cards right. The next step is letting them bring you in.

Most people around you form friendships in their school days and stick with them for the rest of their lives. To make it clear, there is nothing wrong with that. You want close people you can trust and rely on. The only problem is that it doesn’t take into consideration that you might be spending time with people you should not be spending time with.

What those same people never do

Define who they want to spend their time with
1. Maybe you want someone who is far ahead of you?
2. Maybe you are looking for peers at your level?
3. Maybe you want someone behind you because you want to help them?
4. Or you want close friends that you can trust.
Audit what they already have
1. Put effort into the relationships they already have that are worth more of their time and effort. Big one.

These two factors alone play a big part in who you become and who you end up surrounded by. Knowing who you want to be surrounded by is the first piece of the puzzle. The other piece of the puzzle? Giving them a reason to stay. As already mentioned, you have to bring something to the table. You have to be useful to the others you want to be surrounded by. That is the hard truth… The older you get, the more it becomes clear that past a certain point, most relationships are transactional. It is the truth most don’t want to hear. This is where your ability to be dependable comes through. If you promise someone you will do something. You have to do it.

5. Get out of the house

Life ought to be an adventure, not a vegetation. - Max Gunther (Zurich Axioms)

Make it a habit to touch grass. Regularly. Both in terms of spending time in nature alone with your thoughts and by going outside with your social circle. It is a life-changing habit. Why? It puts you in a perspective where you will find yourself appreciating things for what they are. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be out every day for hours wandering around looking for your next side quest. But you have to understand that in order to increase your luck surface area, you have to expose yourself.

Much more to the environments you see yourself in and becoming part of. New people, new places, new activities, new things... Those you always wanted to try and those you don’t do enough of. They all belong to this category, and that is exactly what makes it worth it. You have to intentionally put yourself where other exceptional people are spending their time. Similar to the point we made above in our tribe section. Getting out of spectator mode is what separates those who get far from those who wait for life to happen to them. You don’t need anything else to start with just one thing you would normally not do. It can be a random meetup, a class, or a dinner with people outside of your social circle. All of those contribute to your luck and increase the chances of changing things around.

6. Accept that everything worth it in your life will be hard

This is the big one because it removes all the limitations around the word "hard". What does hard even mean? We can all agree that it just makes things worse. When you label something as hard, you have already created a sort of friction. There is a subconscious feeling that you expect it to be hard, and then what happens is that you come up with coping mechanisms to avoid doing what you are supposed to do. This is an extremely common scenario and proof that we can either be our best friends or our worst enemies.

The better way to approach it (and one that most people around you are unable to put themselves in) is the idea that if something were not hard… Everyone would do it. Reframe. Framework… However you want to call it. What happens when everyone can do the same thing? There is less bread on the table for everyone. That is just surface-level thinking, and yet it should be clear what we are aiming at. If you want to go deeper and throw in some Eastern philosophies and ideas, you will come to the conclusion that pain is your pathway to what you should be doing. It points you in the right direction. But one that you are avoiding deep down. They approach it from a point where suffering is a gift that creates opportunities for you.

This is where you as an individual have to realize something. Doing hard things or even embracing hard things does not mean you have to be miserable. It should be clear that suffering and misery are not the same thing. It just pushes you toward finding the things (work, skills, experiences) that give you energy, make you excited to wake up, and give you a sense of belonging. Once you get that framework down and make it part of your identity. It becomes MUCH easier to accept that hard things are worth your time and should be treated as part of your life. Conclusion? There is nobody out there building something real at 2am asking themselves whether they are happy or not. The answer is clear.

7. Recognize that opportunities are everywhere

When we say everywhere… We REALLY mean everywhere. The only problem with the life changing opportunities? They are unexpected. They usually show up when you are already too busy and focused on something else. The worst part? They disappear fast if you do not act on them. Another point worth mentioning is that the biggest opportunities rarely look like a hit right from the start. Skipping that unsexy conference might save you $500. At the same time, it might also stop you from meeting the one person who changes your whole life.

All those opportunities you missed, you will only recognize looking back. The lucky ones are those who managed to spot them as they are happening and give themselves enough space to act on them. The reason we say that opportunities are everywhere is simple. This POV changes how you look at things. Once you realize that anything around you that is slow, overpriced, confusing, or broken is actually something that someone would pay to have fixed. You have a complete mindset shift. There is an understanding that it is someone’s future business… Take Bezos as an example. Reality is that Amazon was nothing groundbreaking when it started. It was an online bookstore. Bookstore. Read it again. Yet as time went on, it changed the whole game and the landscape.

8. No more following the script others wrote for you

From our $10 Million, 10 Years, Zero Excuses.

The scheme above is what ACTUALLY works and one we covered in depth in our zero excuses post. You want freedom? You want to afford the things others around you can’t? You want to live outside of survival mode and stop worrying about whether you will have enough to pay the bills? It means you will have to take the risks that come with it. You will have to do what others will not. This is where it becomes crucial to understand that following the old ways your grandparents and parents used to live… Doesn’t work anymore.

We live in the modern world. One that is drastically different from what it was 30 years ago. And there is a good chance that no advice from before the 2000s (except advice about human nature… it never changes) is worth taking. You know the script: get a good job, stay at one company your whole life, put everything into the retirement fund and forget about it. We challenge you to look for patterns and notice where that advice still works. Nowhere. You have been warned. Most people around you never figured this out. They keep doing what they have been told, thinking it will get them the life they want to live. That unfortunately won’t happen. Now look back at that scheme again...

9. Zero-sum thinking is for… Losers

The game never ends… I don’t think about winning or losing ever, on anything I do. I just keep playing the game. - Micky Malka

Life is PvP. At the same time… It is not. When it comes to getting a job or competing for something… It is obviously PvP. When it is not? When it comes to relationships, friendships… You get the picture. A big reason people are so unhappy is that they think that is the only way. Better said. The mistake is treating everything as zero-sum when there is something for everyone. That doesn’t mean you should take it easy or let others run over you. That doesn’t mean there is a participation trophy or anything similar. The smarter way to look at it? Remove the ego.

Once you take your ego out of the competition and creation, you can truly start to experience what it is all about. It also gives you a bigger picture… The realization that one person’s success doesn’t mean the other side has to lose. For example, someone you know starts a business and succeeds. Reality is that there is nothing less for you. It doesn’t hurt you or damage you in any way. Quite the opposite. You are just getting another person in your circle who knows how to win and get what they want.

Most people live in a paranoid state where every win for someone else is seen as a loss for them. That is the wrong way to look at a PvP-type environment. Where it gets even worse? When you start noticing that there are people who have been programmed to want the other side to lose. To a point, they want the other side to lose more than they want to see themselves win. Sadly, this is much more common than people tend to think.

10. When everyone is optimizing for a shortcut lifestyle, you play the long game

It is impossible to deny that the last 10 years have been nothing but jackpot propaganda. It is hard to pinpoint exactly why that is the case.

It could be one of three things (or all of them together)

Millions of people made the easiest money of their lives overnight betting with crypto.
Algorithms completely took over, and everyone now consumes the same content (and compares themselves to it - killing the personal taste(s) and everything else).
The course sellers did their job right…

This is where it gets important for you to start doing the opposite. Not in a way that means you stop pushing with the same intensity as everyone else. But by understanding that getting into the right place at the right time… Staying in that game once you find yourself in it, and building something others will never be able to do themselves is what it is all about.

That is the real unfair advantage of the era when everyone is chasing shortcuts and treating their lives as lottery tickets. It removes you from chasing the one big win that will "change your life". It pushes you instead to prioritize multiple smaller wins that build toward something bigger. It doesn’t mean you move slowly or take your time. You want to be relentless. You want to be fast. Never stand in one place. But be fully aware that what you are trying to achieve will take time. Not just time. But also effort, hours, sleepless nights, and everything else that comes with it.

The same idea applies to everything worth building - wealth, skills, friendships, reputation… All the factors that actually impact your life and compound over time. Your mission is to pick something you are going to stick to and build on it. Do the opposite of everyone else, and you will get results opposite to everyone else.

11. Stop endless optimization of every single area of your life

Everyone knows that personal experiments are the key to a good life. Not to mention we were doing it long before Huberman became a thing. To be clear, we are not anti-optimization. Neither should you be. The problem is that it is a very thin line between getting 20% better sleep quality and unnecessarily over-optimizing things that might bring you a 1% - 2% improvement in your overall quality of life. This is the key distinction… And the one most people who get deep into optimization lose themselves in.

Now you might be asking yourself what exactly the problem with that is? There is a hidden cost attached to it. Attention, energy, and time (the three most important resources you have). Not everything deserves 100% of your focus. Much more so when half of the systems people build usually turn into a sophisticated way of avoiding the actual work that moves you forward. Everyone knows someone who optimized their morning routine but still struggles to do something big and meaningful.

What you will never regret sticking to:

Health
Work (your business)
Relationships

Everything else? Mostly a waste of time if you try to optimize it down to the tiniest details. Just by getting these 3 right, the rest usually takes care of itself.

12. Practice wanting less

The more access to capital you have, the more obvious it becomes that the real happiness comes from wanting less. That doesn’t mean you have to hold yourself back and go at things with 70% of the intensity. But there is an unwritten rule that you have to go through this cycle and come back to the start. Get access to everything you ever wanted… Just to end up right where you began. Remember the last time there was something you really wanted? Used it for a month… And it just ended up being another thing you own?

Figuring out what is actually necessary vs. what is just something you want. When you want more, you will always find yourself operating from a place where something feels missing. Always thinking that you need something more to be happy. Turning yourself into a victim who is unable to escape your own desires. The hedonic treadmill. We would call it spending years just to end up in the same place you were before… People around you? On an endless pursuit of always wanting more. How many times have you heard:

"I just need this… and my life will change" or "let me get this and you will see…"

That never happens. If you are reading our content… There is a good chance you have everything you need for success. It just has to click. Connect this with the happiness part, and it becomes painfully obvious why most people are never happy. It all comes down to thinking they are missing something from their life. Spending days, months, or even years to get it… Just to end up back at the same spot they were before. If you struggle with this or are an impulse buyer… Make yourself a simple promise that before any purchase over $500 (or any other amount you find works for you), you will wait at least 2 weeks. What happens if those two weeks pass and you still want it? Buy it.

13. Be useful to others

There is no single definition of being useful to others, and that is exactly what makes this point beautiful. It might mean starting a YouTube cooking channel and helping others get better at it while "selfishly" doing what you love. It might mean that you spent years being in an industry and made a name for yourself. So why not find someone you could mentor? Teaching, writing, solving problems, making something faster or easier to use… There is an unlimited number of ways you could improve someone’s life. Anything from becoming a regular on a forum where you can share your expertise (and building a name for yourself) all the way to volunteering.

For those who are on the younger side or anyone having a hard time figuring out why being useful to others is an antidote to a miserable life. The answer is simple. It all comes down to putting your attention on something other than yourself. Remember our tribe point? This is one way to look at it, and you can earn your way into the circle of people you want to be surrounded by. Mix that with a sense of fulfillment and something you are passionate about… It becomes crystal clear why being useful to others is necessary. Better said why it is an antidote.

14. Work on your agency (own everything you do)

How would the person I wish to become do the thing I’m about to do? - Steve Siebold

Let’s put aside that today everyone uses the term agency as the ultimate goal. Describing it in a way as a certain state or an idea. We don’t necessarily agree with that, and the real agency comes down to one thing… Taking ownership. When you promise yourself that you will do something, you actually commit to it. When something unexpected happens, you make sure you are in the position to pull through instead of giving up at the first sign of things going wrong. When you finally accept that you cannot control everything that happens to you. That is the real redefinition of agency. Taking ownership of the situation you are in, the things happening to you, and every unpredictable factor that comes into play.

Knowing deep down… That whatever happens next in your life is partly up to you. It is a decision. How you react to it, what you do with it, and whether you choose to take part in it. You choose to take part in creating the life you want to live.

It might sound like motivation slop. But think about it. It is one of the hardest states an individual can reach. It is also another confirmation that life NEVER changes for the better without giving you more tasks, more tests, and more challenges. It is one of those rules you will have to accept. It might not be your fault that something is happening. But it is your responsibility.

Conclusion: The quote we opened with? The reason most people around you are miserable is that they have nothing worth going after and nothing worth being preoccupied with. That is the whole post in one sentence.

Remember our point #8? Ask yourself how you got here. Did you choose it… Or did someone else choose it for you?

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Antidote to a Miserable Life