can you increase your happiness without losing your drive?

borkat: “happiness is for stupid people.” that’s a common complaint i hear from smart overachievers. they think only dumb or lazy people can be happy. entrepreneurs will say, “i don’t want to be happy because i want to be successful.” they worry that if they get too happy they’ll lose their desire and won’t work hard anymore. can you increase happiness without losing your drive?

it’s ok to not want to be happy. but we’re going to explore whether you can increase your happiness without significantly lowering your drive or intellect.

figuring out the truth will lead to happiness but don’t get it backwards: you’re not smart because you’re unhappy; you’re unhappy because you’re smart. you can be happy and smart—it’s just going to take more work. the good news is, smart people are good at figuring out the truth. the more you dig into certain deep truths, the freer and more peaceful you will become. that peace will lead to happiness.

if you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy? i absolutely believe that is true. the beauty of being mentally high functioning in our society is that you can trade it for almost anything. if you’re smart, you can figure out how to be happy within your biological constraints. but your biological constraints are a lot larger than you might think.

of course, some of this is a fake, pleasure-driven happiness. but there’s truth to it; otherwise, you wouldn’t desire that state.

and here i want to mention many things and explain. however, i came up with an idea: you need improvements in your life. not only there is nothing more important for an individual, i think if i add something from my experience, it could make things worse, and i really do not want to take that risk. and also it’s your life — I may not even know you in person or what your current circumstances are. so, i think it would be better if you do it alone, take a day and really think about it.

there is a saying i love: “don’t use someone else’s map to find your road.”

and finally, when you find your answer, follow it and enjoy the journey. life is not so complicated that you should stay tired and stressed all day long.

borkat: the saying goes like this: every man has two lives, and the second starts when he realizes he has only one. so when you choose something, choose what you love—then it will not feel like work. for example, you want to be a footballer; it’s your lifelong dream. fortunately, you got this opportunity. at the same time, someone else’s parents force him to be a footballer. so now tell me: from which side would the outcome be better? you or him? exactly. the quote means this: you escape work through authenticity.

recently, i was watching an interview of nvidia’s ceo jensen huang where he said, “i work as much as i can from the moment i wake up until the moment i go to bed. i work seven days a week. when i’m not working, i’m thinking about working.” do you think it’s possible for an individual to do that if he doesn’t love his work? it’s never possible.

there are basically three big decisions you make around that age, and one of them is what you are doing. at the end of the day, life is really a single-player game. it’s all going on in your head. whatever you think and believe will very much shape your reality. if you are walking down the street and judging everyone—like “i don’t like them because of their skin color,” “she’s not attractive,” “that guy is fat,” “this person is a loser,” “who put this in my way”—the more you judge, the more you separate yourself. you will feel good for an instant because you feel superior, but then you will feel lonely. you’re just going to see negativity everywhere. the world just reflects your own feelings back at you.

reality is neutral. reality has no judgments. you are born, you experience a whole set of sensations—lights, colors, sounds—and then you die. how you choose to interpret all of that is up to you.

borkat: most people externalize failure. the economy failed them. their boss was unfair. their circumstances were unlucky. but the moment you stop blaming external factors, you reclaim your power. you become the author of your life instead of a character in someone else's story.

This is not about self-blame in the destructive sense. It is about taking radical responsibility. Even when circumstances are genuinely difficult, there are still choices. You can choose how to respond, what to learn, where to pivot. This agency is the most valuable thing you possess.

People who blame themselves for failures are often the most successful because they believe they can change the outcome next time. They do not wait for permission or for conditions to improve. They move. And most importantly, they learn faster than anyone else.

borkat: visit all the places, eat all the food, read all the books, make all the friends,

gather all the fame, support all the causes, build all the products, earn all the money

to see that the quality of your life is what it is when you are doing nothing.

borkat: this is one of the most debated dimensions of human existence: should you simply drift with the current, or should you challenge the direction it pushes you toward? is the so-called “main life goal” really what society insists it must be? and, more importantly, what do we genuinely require to feel fulfilled? if you can fully inhabit the present moment, do you truly need anything that fails to enrich your sense of meaning?

perhaps those things hold some value, but not enough to outweigh the importance of being alive and aware. every human carries a soul, and we naturally gravitate toward the actions we love—whether or not they appear purposeful to others. and here’s the real question: if a person feels content working a minimum-wage job, who has the authority to stop them? if someone is at peace even in unemployment and genuinely loves their life, does the judgment of others hold any real weight?

do you honestly believe that, in 2026, a degree is the only gateway to your dream career? if your answer is yes, then perhaps we’re not aligned. most of the knowledge, tools, and opportunities you need are now only a single intelligent search away. ultimately, if you remain faithful to your own path and it leads you toward the life you once imagined, then that achievement is enough. i’m writing this for one simple purpose: to remind you that happiness matters more than any external measure of success. if you’re content with the life you choose, that alone justifies your journey.

and remember this: there is no second life—not here, not in any alternate universe. so why waste the one you have? i’m not suggesting you surrender to every intrusive impulse. make choices that are rational and meaningful. take your time with major decisions. be kind to others and offer help where you can. remove the people who lead you nowhere—they are distractions, not companions.

live a grounded life: pursue what aligns with your talent, your belief, and your love. anything else will pull you off your path and ultimately damage you. don’t become that person. and never forget: once you’re gone, people will shape your story however they choose. before you make any life-changing decision, pause, reflect, and choose yourself first.

you have to enjoy it

borkat: it’s 2025, so yes, we do live on earth. we were all born without knowing what was going to happen, where we were going, who we would be raised by, or anything else. a lot of question marks fly around pretty much all the time. it’s like that for everybody. every single person alive right now has no idea what is going on, and I think taking that personally is a disease. it holds you back from letting go, smiling, and walking around like, who cares? nobody cares. believe me — nobody does. maybe you think some people care about you, but they actually don’t. the truth is, they don’t have bigger problems than you; that’s why they give you some initial company. don’t ever think they will save you. if you do, most chances are you will get destroyed pretty soon.

the piece of advice i have is to have a little bit more fun. think of it like an exercise — just to warm yourself up to enjoying life and not taking things too seriously. for example: talk to strangers. if you’re walking on the sidewalk and someone is coming toward you, don’t just look at the ground and awkwardly walk past them. look at them in the eyes and say, “hey, how’s your day?” anything is fine — who cares? if you’re at the park and someone is sitting on a bench, say “what’s up?” nobody knows what’s going on. everybody is just walking around doing whatever.

like, what is his job? how much does he make yearly? it’s all just ideas floating around. you can make your life a little more fun by going up to random people. it will be hard at first, but you’ll get used to it. eventually you’ll realize: oh yeah, nobody actually cares.

and don’t forget — that was just an example. you get one life. working five days a week for two days of fun? exactly. maybe you meet one person who has the information you’ve been searching for for years. it’s free to access — you just have to ask questions. where did you grow up? What did you do? What do you like doing? What do you know? any book recommendations?

maybe the whole advice sounds foolish, but finally: don’t use someone else’s map to find your own road. you’ve got only one life. live it the way you think is good.

That's a big question. Because it's a big question, I'll give you three answers.

Answer 1: It's personal. You have to find your own meaning.Any piece of wisdom anybody else gives you, whether it's Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) or me, is going to sound like sick. Fundamentally, you have to find it for yourself, so the important part is not the answer, it's the question. You just have to sit there and dig with the question. It might take you years or decades. When you find an answer you're happy with, it will be fundamental to your life.

Answer 2: There is no meaning to life. There is no purpose to life. Osho said, "It's like writing on water or building houses of sand." The reality is you've been dead for the history of the Universe, 10 billion years or more. You will be dead for the next 70 billion years or so, until the heat death of the Universe. Anything you do will fade. It will disappear, just like the human race will disappear and the planet will disappear. Even the group who colonizes Mars will disappear. No one is going to remember you past a certain number of generations, whether you’re an artist, a poet, a conqueror, a pauper, or anyone else.

There’s no meaning. You have to create your own meaning, which is what it boils down to. You have to decide:

“Is this a play I’m just watching?"

“Is there a self-actualization dance I’m doing?”

“Is there a specific thing I desire just for the heck of it?”

These are all meanings you make up.

There is no fundamental, intrinsic purposeful meaning to the Universe. If there was, then you would just ask the next question. You’d say, “Why is that the meaning?” It would be, as physicist Richard Feynman said, it would be “turtles all the way down.” The “why’s” would keep accumulating. There is no answer you could give that wouldn’t have another “why.”

Before you were born, you didn’t care about anything or anyone, including your loved ones, including yourself, includ-ing humans, including whether we go to Mars or whether we stay on planet Earth, whether there’s an AI or not. After death, you just don’t care either.

Answer 3: The last answer I’ll give you is a little more complicated. From what I’ve read in science (my mentors have written books on this), I’ve stitched together some theories. Maybe there is a meaning to life, but it’s not a very satisfying purpose.

Basically, in physics, the arrow of time comes from entropy.

The second law of thermodynamics states entropy only goes up, which means disorder in the Universe only goes up, which means concentrated free energy only goes down. If you look at living things (humans, plants, civilizations, what have you) these systems are locally reversing entropy. Humans locally reverse entropy because we have action.

In the process, we globally accelerate entropy until the heat death of the Universe. You could come up with some fanciful theory, which I like, that we’re headed towards the heat death of the Universe. In that death, there’s no concentrated energy, and everything is at the same energy level. Therefore, we’re all one thing. We’re essentially indistinguishable.

What we do as living systems accelerates getting to that state. The more complex system you create, whether it’s through computers, civilization, art, mathematics, or creating a family—you actually accelerate the heat death of the Universe. You’re pushing us towards this point where we end up as one thing.