This text is based on my PhD on happiness and the good life in the outdoors. To learn more about my research, check out this post where I share the story behind my journey.
This week I had one of the best days in a long time.
Not because I accomplished something but because I finally let my shoulders down and enjoyed a moment in the sun, watching my new friend Cyrisa spray paint an old shed while Dell and I did plunges in the lake.
You know that summer day sensation? That feeling of presence, stillness, and lack of concern that brings you straight back to childhood? That’s the sweet-spot, innit?
So why is it so hard to get there? Why are these days so few and far between?
Problem #1: The burnout society
We’ve never been richer, yet we feel poorer in spirit, tired, even depleted—chasing dopamine hits through scrolling and screens.
We’ve been raised to believe that happiness will arrive once we get the next job, partner, or house. This is the “happiness fantasy” of the American Dream, the ideal that Hollywood is selling us. But despite decades of economic growth and technological breakthroughs, depression and burnout rates keep climbing.
For Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han, the problem is rooted in our relation to achievement—in the constant push for self-optimisation and productivity. Han argues that we are burning out not because we’re oppressed, but because we are exploiting ourselves in the name of freedom, achievement, and yes—the pursuit of happiness.
He contrasts this with earlier forms of life that valued stillness, contemplation, and communal belonging. Burnout societies erode these possibilities, replacing them with performance, hyperactivity, and isolation.
I should know this very well—I’ve chased academic perfection to exhaustion. I’ve gobbled antidepressants and anxiety pills like candy on Christmast Eve.
Bupropion did the trick for me: it didn’t make me happier, but it gave me energy, focus, and motivation to keep performing at the office. To, in what now seems like divine irony, keep up the pace in my research on happiness and the good life.
Problem #2: The collapse of the future
One of the key insights from my frantic yet desperate (you’re right, there’s no contradiction between ‘em) deep dive into the philosophy of happiness was how, in the west, happiness is deferred to the future.
In modern, secular societies, the protestant ethos of striving so that one could reach eternal bliss in the afterlife was translated to this simple recipe: work hard now, enjoy life later—in the years between retirement and death.
Han shows us that the pursuit of future achievement as a path to happiness leaves us exhausted in the present, which partly explains the boomer generation’s frustration with millennials turning to instant gratification for their fulfilment.
Another problem, which also relates to the deferral of happiness to the future is that we’re increasingly living in a world of overlapping crises, where tomorrow looks grimmer than today: climate change, rising inequality, democratic failure, and political instability means that belief in progress is fading.
And when people loose faith in the future, the deferral of happiness seems like a poor strategy for fulfilment.
Problem #3: Believing that there are no alternatives to the status quo
Focusing on the present is not necessarily a bad thing. But if living like there’s no tomorrow sends us spiralling down the hedonistic path of instant gratification, problems tend to accumulate and leave us worse off than we already are: the dreaded negative feedback-loop.
Politically, the loss of faith in progress fuels projects that try to reaffirm growth as the central promise of modernity. Reactionary movements do so by promising a better future for that part of the population which is deemed deserving, while the pundits of green capitalism try to restore our faith in financial abundance by appealing to technical solutions.
At present, nobody has managed to propose a credible way out of this mess—at least not one that does not significantly disturb existing structures of power.
To make up for the lack of real solutions, the consensus among our leaders seems to be that there are no alternatives to the status quo. That some iteration of an economy built around growth is the only way forward: increased productivity, efficiency, output.
The solution: Reimagining happiness
But what if the answer is not to restore economic growth? What if the true crisis is a crisis of imagination?
One of Antonio Gramsci’s best-known concepts is that of the interregnum—a period of transition where the old order is dying while the new order has not yet been born. It is a difficult period to live through: without a vision of the future, we lose our bearings in the present.
Perhaps one of the solutions (yes, we need many) is to rethink happiness in such a way that it does not rely on perpetual growth, but on things that are already freely available to us?
Instead of chasing wealth or waiting for the future, we can learn to see happiness in what’s already abundant and available to us: community, nature, creativity, and belonging. Humanity’s shared wealth.
We can start chasing presence instead of success. Purpose instead of achievement. Human dignity instead of the millionaire lifestyle. This shift is not just personal—it’s cultural.
I know, this might not be the quick fix you were hoping for, but you know what? Quick fixes might be good for a moment, but they don’t work in the long run.
That’s why I’m inviting you to join me on this journey to rethink the meaning of happiness, wealth, and abundance—together.
Who knows, we might even have some fun along the way…
I needed to read this today. Totally resonates as I move blindly into an unexpected, unplanned and unknown future. At 74 (next month), I still haven't a clue on my Purpose.