For years, the author pursued happiness as a tangible goal, undertaking significant life changes like relocating, career shifts, and building a business. Despite achieving meaningful milestones, including a life in Saigon with his family, a successful company, and impactful writing, a persistent feeling of 'not enough' lingered. This stemmed from comparing his reality to an idealized state of happiness, a gap that prevented him from appreciating present moments.
He realized that treating happiness as a pursuit creates a deficit. This 'arrival fallacy' leads individuals to believe happiness lies beyond the next achievement, a belief contradicted by psychological research. Studies consistently show that those who directly chase happiness report lower well-being than those focused on meaning, connection, or contribution. Instead, achievements offer temporary emotional spikes, followed by hedonic adaptation where the brain returns to baseline, prompting a continuous chase for the next milestone.
The author connected this to Buddhist philosophy, which identifies suffering as arising from craving-the desire for things to be different. Happiness, when pursued as a goal, becomes another form of craving, creating dissatisfaction. The Buddhist alternative emphasizes stopping the conditional pursuit of happiness and uncovering contentment by removing self-imposed conditions, rather than building it through external circumstances.
A shift occurred not through a grand event, but a gradual loosening of his grip. One morning in Saigon, while enjoying coffee and observing the awakening street, he realized he wasn't assessing his happiness. He was simply present, experiencing a quiet steadiness. This was happiness, not as a peak experience, but as an absence of the internal gap and the constant question of 'am I happy yet?'
His approach now centers on 'what am I willing to be absorbed by?' rather than 'what will make me happy?' This reorientation places engagement at the core, which is immediately available, unlike happiness, which was previously chased as a future reward. While acknowledging bad days and the occasional slip into old patterns, he now recognizes the emerging gap and chooses to close it by returning to the present moment-a cup of coffee, his daughter's face, a sentence to write-experiencing these ordinary moments as genuine happiness.
For those still chasing happiness, the advice is to stop looking. The author suggests that the 'looking' itself obstructs the view of the readily available 'raw materials' for happiness. It's not a destination to be reached but a thing to be noticed when one pauses the constant building and simply looks around. True happiness, he concludes, is found in the present, imperfect moment, experienced without the filter of 'is this enough?' It was always enough; the pursuit was the only thing that made it feel insufficient.