Happiness and smart mind.

"Happiness is for the stupid." That's a growing complaint that 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.

Could you raise happiness without losing your drive?

Like anything else, this is something of a reality. Generally speaking, the smarter you are, the better or healthier you can see behind the veil of daily life. You see all the threats and downsides – the calamities that are waiting for us. You see the deception and cynicism behind so many things presented as being good for you or society. You become cynical, and by cynicism, you signal your intelligence. Very smart people frequently communicate through purely cynical observations. It's Cool not to wish to be happy. But we'll explore whether you can increase your satisfaction without reducing your motivation or intelligence significantly. Let's take the first objection: "I'm not happy, because I'm smart." You are partially unhappy because you know too much and you understand it too well. You have been overly exposed to it. Yet that doesn't mean you can't be comfortable and keep your intellect on hold.

But don't get it backward: because you're unhappy you 're not smart; because you're smart you 're unhappy. You can be happy and smart-it will just take more work. The good news is that smart people are good at grasping the truth. The more you dig into those deep realities, the more you become freer and more calm. That peace will be bringing happiness.

If you are smart enough, why are you not happy? I believe that is true. In our culture, the advantage of being working mentally high is that you can trade it for almost everything. When you're wise, you will work out how to be safe within your genetic constraints and how to be successful within your environmental constraints.

You can figure out how to be happy within your biological constraints, if you are smart. Yet your biological limits are far greater than you would think.

If you've ever been drunk on psychedelic drugs or through meditation, breathing, or other hypnotic techniques, you've experienced brief moments of happiness beyond what you feel on a typical day.  Some of this is of course a fake, pleasure-driven happiness. But it does have truth; otherwise, you wouldn't want that condition.  

Attaining these brief happiness states will show you just how diverse your range is — and that range can be very broad. Why do you constantly nudge yourself in that direction, as opposed to visiting it by shocking your mind into submission and silence?    

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