Yesterday, I listened to a podcast on happiness. It got me thinking.
Am I happy? Since my eyes opened four hours ago, I’ve dreaded writing this essay. Now that I’m drafting this essay, my dread grows. It’s not coming together as expected. This feeling sucks. My head hurts. I want to go back to bed.
So no, as of this moment, I am not happy.
I, like the podcast’s host, once believed in the happiness formula. Start with how I’m feeling now, add in a dash of exercise, a cup of friends, and a sprinkle of meditation, then out of the oven comes happiness like the Pharell song. If I’m ever unhappy in the future, just add a little more of each ingredient, and it’s back!
I evangelically followed the formula for years. I still, to a point, follow the formula. I think it has value. No matter how purposeful my actions are, what I eat, how I exercise, and when I sleep will affect my emotions. Without attention to the pillars of existence, nothing holds up. And inside medicine, because of the formula, I was happy for stretches. I was happy in the curl of a wave. I was happy drinking coffee with my wife. You think I didn’t find fulfillment in treating patients? Fulfillment with my family? Happiness, and even fulfillment, were at the heart of how I lived.
But eventually, the dearth came knocking. I thought you said you were happy and fulfilled? What dearth?
The dearth of aliveness.
More sleep, less screentime, more friend hangouts, less processed food, more surfing, less time under fluorescent light, more apple cider vinegar. Sure, some of these changes helped me feel better. But they never made me feel more alive.
Until I staked my life around what I felt called to do and who I was, then committed to surviving in that vast territory of uncertainty, the dearth always caught up; something would always feel off, unsolvable by the perfect wave, untouchable by eight hours of sleep.
I can’t say for sure what aliveness is, but when I didn’t have it, I knew. As best as I can label it, aliveness is an underlying satisfaction in knowing you’re in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things, authentically. Given I didn’t want to be a doctor, what aliveness did I have to stand upon?
Now, I just want to be in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing, learning more about who I am. To have that opportunity—all I ever wanted while I was in medicine—is worth so much more than happiness.
Today, I wasn’t happy. Yet, I survived. Tomorrow, I may not be happy either because that’s no longer the target. It’s aliveness; because for all the happiness I used to feel, I wasn’t surviving.
(Last week, I published my new book 32 Lessons from 8 Years Lost in Medicine. If you’d like to a copy, here’s a link to purchase the e-book.)
[convertkit form=3846822]
