Youtube: PsyCurious by Gari

Picture this. You wake up every morning telling yourself, “Today is the day you’ll finally be happy.” You check off your to-do list, chase that promotion, scroll through social media looking for that perfect moment, and yet somehow you end up feeling more empty than when you started. Sound familiar? Well, what if I told you that a 19th century German philosopher figured out exactly why this happens over 200 years ago, and his insights could completely change how you approach your entire life? Arthur Schopenhau had one of the most brutal yet liberating observations about human nature. The very act of pursuing happiness guarantees you’ll never find it. This isn’t just philosophical mumbo jumbo. This is a psychological trap that millions of people fall into every single day without even realizing it. And today we’re going to break down exactly why chasing happiness makes you miserable and more importantly what you can do about it. But first, let me ask you something. When was the last time you were genuinely completely satisfied? Not just pleased or content, but truly fulfilled in a way that made you think, “I need absolutely nothing else right now.” I’m willing to bet that moment was fleeting, probably lasting only minutes or maybe hours before your mind started wanting something else. Schopenhau would tell you that’s not a flaw in your character. That’s just being human. According to Schopenhau, human existence swings like a pendulum between two equally miserable states, want and boredom. When we don’t have what we want, we suffer from the pain of wanting it. When we get what we want, we suffer from the emptiness of having nothing left to want. Think about it. Remember the last time you really, really wanted something. Maybe it was a new job, a relationship, a car, or even something as simple as a particular meal when you were hungry. The wanting itself was uncomfortable, right? You couldn’t stop thinking about it, planning for it, imagining how much better your life would be once you had it. Then you got it and for a brief moment, maybe a few hours or days, you felt satisfied. But then what happened? Your mind immediately started looking for the next thing to want. That’s what Schopenhau called the will. This relentless unconscious drive that keeps pushing us toward the next desire before we can even enjoy fulfilling the last one. Here’s where it gets really interesting. Modern psychology has actually proven Schopenhau right in ways he couldn’t have imagined. There’s something called hedonic adaptation. Basically, we have a psychological thermostat that keeps resetting our happiness levels back to baseline no matter what good things happen to us. Lottery winners, after the initial excitement wears off, report being no happier than they were before winning. People who get their dream jobs find themselves stressed about new responsibilities they never anticipated. Even positive life changes like marriage or buying a house create temporary spikes in happiness that quickly level off. But here’s the thing that makes Schopenhau’s insight so devastating. We know this is happening yet we keep doing it anyway. We keep thinking the next achievement, the next purchase, the next relationship, the next experience will be different. We tell ourselves that this time this thing will finally make us happy in a lasting way. But it never does because it literally cannot. Chopenhau believed this cycle exists because we mistake satisfaction for happiness. Satisfaction is what happens when a want is fulfilled. It’s the temporary relief from the discomfort of wanting. But happiness, true happiness, has nothing to do with getting what you want. In fact, the more intensely you want something, the less capable you become of experiencing genuine contentment. Think about social media for a second. Every platform is designed to trigger this want satisfaction want cycle on steroids. You scroll, you see something that makes you want, whether it’s someone’s lifestyle, their relationship, their success, their appearance, then you either try to get it or you feel bad about not having it. Even if you do get something similar, there’s always another post, another person, another thing to want. The platforms literally profit from keeping you in this state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Now you might be thinking, okay, this is pretty depressing. If wanting things makes us miserable and getting things only provides temporary relief, what’s the point of doing anything at all? This is where Schopenhau’s philosophy gets really practical and surprisingly hopeful. Schopenhau discovered that there are brief moments when we can escape this pendulum entirely. These moments happen when we become completely absorbed in something outside ourselves. when we’re so focused on an activity, a piece of music, a work of art, or even a conversation that we temporarily forget about our wants and needs. He called this aesthetic contemplation, but we might recognize it today as flow states or mindfulness. During these moments, the will, that relentless wanting mechanism, goes quiet. You’re not trying to get anywhere or become anything. You’re just completely present with what is. And paradoxically, these moments of not trying to be happy are often when we feel most alive and fulfilled. Here’s what’s really revolutionary about this insight. It suggests that happiness isn’t something you can chase or achieve. It’s something that emerges naturally when you stop chasing it. It’s like trying to fall asleep. The harder you try, the more elusive it becomes. But when you let go of trying, it often happens by itself. This doesn’t mean becoming passive or giving up on goals. It means changing your relationship to those goals. Instead of thinking, “I’ll be happy when I achieve this,” you start thinking, “I’ll pursue this because it’s meaningful or interesting, regardless of how it makes me feel.” Instead of chasing experiences because they might make you happy, you engage with them because they’re worth engaging with for their own sake. Schopenhauer also noticed that our happiest moments often come not from gaining something new, but from the temporary absence of pain or want. Health feels amazing when you’ve been sick. A simple meal tastes incredible when you’ve been truly hungry. A quiet moment feels precious when you’ve been overwhelmed. This suggests that perhaps the path to contentment isn’t about adding more to our lives, but about appreciating what we already have, especially after periods of its absence. One of the most practical applications of Schopenhau’s insight is learning to recognize the difference between authentic desires and manufactured ones. Authentic desires usually emerge from our genuine interests, values, or circumstances. Manufactured desires are often created by comparison, advertising, social pressure, or the assumption that we should want something because others do. The next time you find yourself wanting something intensely, try asking, “Is this desire coming from my genuine self or is it coming from somewhere else? Am I wanting this thing itself or am I wanting the feeling I think it will give me?” Often when we trace the desire back to its source, we discover we’re not really wanting the thing at all. We’re wanting to escape some discomfort or insecurity. Here’s something Schopenhau understood that we’re only beginning to appreciate today. The quality of our inner life matters more than our external circumstances. Two people can have identical lives on paper and have completely different levels of contentment based entirely on how they relate to their experience. This brings us to something that might help deepen your understanding of these concepts and your own journey of self-discovery. Gari Nguyen is a 29-year-old author currently living in Silicon Valley who has published 13 books in Vietnam since she was 17 years old, including novels, short stories, and personal essays. Her works explore many of these same themes we’ve been discussing today, offering personal insights into the complexities of modern life, happiness, and finding meaning in unexpected places. You can find some of her works on Amazon.com such as Just Hear Me Out and A Luxury Item called Me. What makes Gari’s writing particularly valuable is how she translates these philosophical insights into relatable, practical wisdom that speaks to our contemporary struggles with contentment and purpose. Her books offer a chance to dive deeper into the kind of self-reflection that can help you apply these ideas to your own life. If you found yourself nodding along to today’s discussion, her books might provide exactly the kind of extended exploration that can help you develop a healthier relationship with your own desires and expectations. Think of them as companions for the journey of understanding yourself better, which according to Schopenhau might be one of the most worthwhile pursuits of all. So here’s my challenge for you. For the next week, try to notice when you catch yourself thinking that some future event or acquisition will make you significantly happier. When you notice it, don’t judge yourself. Just observe it with curiosity. See if you can find moments of contentment that aren’t dependent on getting anything new, but simply on being fully present with whatever you’re experiencing right now. Remember, Schopenhau’s message isn’t that life is meaningless or that we should stop pursuing things we care about. It’s that the secret to contentment might be hiding in plain sight.