How I 10x'd my income and 0x'd my happiness

For 2 years I lived on a grad school stipend, and 40% of it went to a therapist. The plan was simple: finish the degree, land a good-paying job, and then I'd finally stop counting every dollar, buy everything I'd been putting off, and be happy.

That thought got me up at 7 AM for classes and kept me from comparing myself to former consulting colleagues who were already flying to the Maldives and buying convertibles. It kept me grinding for two years.

Then it worked. Degree done, offer from Yandex, salary 10x my monthly expenses, and two weeks in, the first paycheck landed. Ding! That evening I opened the banking app, looked at the number, and asked myself the question I'd been saving for two years: what do I buy now to become happier?

I thought about it for a day, then a second, then a third, and couldn't name a single thing that would make me multiples happier. Not a little happier, multiples, the way I'd promised myself. Two years of saving on everything and putting life off until later, and when later finally arrived, it turned out to be empty.

I wanted to understand what was broken in my model of the world, and the answer came from the Naval Ravikant Almanack:

"Happiness is such an overloaded word. For me these days, happiness is more about peace than it is about joy. Peace is happiness at rest, and happiness is peace in motion."

That was the mistake. For two years I'd been waiting for joy, for the spike of euphoria that comes when you buy the thing, feel good, get used to it, set the next goal and wait for the next spike. That's the hedonic treadmill. What I actually needed was peace: a state where I don't want to change anything and don't compare myself to anyone, where I simply accept what's there.

Stay tuned 🥷🥷🥷