Happiness and the possibility of walking away...

This psychological tool may help you optimize for happiness.

“Whatever you’re doing is the most important use of your time right now according to you.”

I read something like this on twitter. I don’t remember who wrote it, but it prompted me to reflect. And it was a bit alarming considering I spent like 15 hours this week learning how to set up email management automation and a CRM.

I thought about the inner pressure I put on myself to be productive and get things done. Then I remembered a lesson I wrote about years ago in 10 Lessons from Majoring in Happiness and Living as a Zen Monk.  

Remember you can always walk away.

One of the first cliché rules in the art of negotiation is the side that is willing to walk away holds the power.

I’ve been on both sides of this.

At one point in my life I had a job that I didn’t really care that much about because I planned to leave it anyway. I had the attitude of — “yeah I’m going to do what is asked of me and do it well, but if you guys want to fire me, go ahead”.

Now, one could argue this isn’t the best attitude, but it was interesting to observe my experience of work compared to my many hard-charging young colleagues (some of whom had six-figure student loan debt or families to care for). They would frequently pull 50 or 60 hour weeks. Every time I talked to them they’d be stressed to the max. They would forget to send an email or get a report done on time and sound like they were going to have a heart attack.

I, on the other hand, did like 30 or so hours per week with little to no stress and kept everyone happy (getting several successful performance reviews along the way).

I remember one day showing up for this 20 person meeting with senior directors. At the start of the meeting my boss said, “Okay Jackson and Sarah you’re up to present the research you’ve been doing the last few weeks”.

Sarah and I both looked at each other (we were on Zoom but somehow it felt like we made eye contact). There was a long pause — and I said “I apologize, this wasn’t Sarah’s fault. I think I mistakenly had the wrong thing down in my calendar. Can we present at a future date?”

The managers were basically like “okay, no worries we’ve all had a mistake like that in our careers we will talk about something else today”. Meanwhile, Sarah looked like she had just survived a near death experience.  

This is sort of a microcosm of my entire work experience there. Because I was ready to walk away I had a totally different relationship with work.

Now, I’ve also been in a relationship where the other person was willing to walk away and I wasn’t. I would frantically check my phone if she didn’t reply. And when she broke up with me I damn near flew halfway across the country to show up at her doorstep (thankfully I was talked out of this). Ultimately, the fact that I wasn’t able to walk away is probably what led to the end of it.

So, I’m not recommending to be a shit employee or a distant partner. But there’s something to be said for this attitude, particularly when it comes to how we engage with the parts of our lives. That’s because awareness brings choice. And with the awareness we can walk away, we empower ourselves to choose.

All too often I seem to forget I can walk away from the path I’m on.

My life goal is essentially to earn a few thousand dollars per month from my happiness work so I can spend my time learning and doing work that I truly enjoy. Because this is such a reasonable and well-thought-out goal it can be a “happiness trap.” A goal becomes a happiness trap when we make an implicit commitment: “I won’t be happy unless I _____ or until I ____.”

This is tricky, because it’s great to have compelling, meaningful, and thoughtful goals for the life you want. The trouble is it can be easy to overwork, suffer, or give up too much to get there. It’s like the person who wants to be a brain surgeon in a big hospital in order to transform and save lives. That is a great vision — but if it means you have to give up 15 years working 60 hours weeks of shift work to get there then maybe it’s not worth it. Is the life you want worth the life you have to give up to get it?

The real danger is not so much in making sacrifices for our future goals. This is a part of life. The issue comes when we lose sight of the fact that we are, in each moment, making a decision about how to engage with life.

Imagine this same aspiring surgeon — her boyfriend asks “Have you thought about maybe doing some other form of medicine?” She snaps at him and says, “What are you talking about there is no other option!” Or someone offers her a job with just as much impact and financial benefit doing cancer research and she thinks to herself, “I have to become a surgeon.”

The issue in this case isn’t that she doesn’t walk away. It’s that walking away isn’t even on her radar. She’s forgotten she can. No awareness, no choice…

So the message here isn’t to walk away. It’s don’t forget you can.

You can walk away from the game of life any time. I don’t mean killing yourself. I mean you can just drop whatever it is you think you have to do, and life will go on. 

You’re burning out trying to make partner at the law firm. You can quit and go work 20 hours per week as an LSAT tutor.

You’re cutting out the world to turn your AI startup into a billion dollar company. You can go apply to a 4 day week job on my friend Phil’s website 4dayweek.io.

You’re obsessing over turning your speaking and consulting practice into something that will make you a few thousand dollars per month. You can go live as a Zen monk again — that one’s for you Jackson!

It’s one thing to know this intellectually. But I’d encourage you to actually walk away for awhile. Go spend a week camping. Go spend a month at a monastery. Take a sabbatical, drop out, quit, whatever. And the one thing I can promise you is life will go on. The world will keep turning.

And when / if you do come back to your goals, your calling, and your life. You’ll have awareness of your ability to walk away. And that brings choice.

This may help you to pursue happiness of tomorrow without giving up too much of your happiness today.

Here’s a start if you want to try this…

I call it “consequence balancing” because most of the time we only think through the worst possible consequences of what would happen if we walk away from something. But if you’re a sharp thinker you might notice this leaves out two important things: (I) the possible good consequences of walking away and (II) all the consequences of not walking away.

Reflect on these questions as it relates to ventures, job, relationships, habits, etc…

• If I were to walk away from ______ for [amount of time greater than 1 month] what are the possible negative consequences? What are the possible positive consequences? List at least 3 for each…

• If I continue (don’t walk away) from _____ what are the possible consequences (good / bad)?

• Having acknowledge all this, what does it mean for me?

Wishing you happiness & success. Your happiness nerd,

Jackson K.