The question isn’t whether you’ll work hard for what you want. You already do that. The real question is: Will you also work—gently, deliberately, daily—for the happiness you’re already capable of feeling?
For years as an attorney, I put in overtime and fully committed to the grind. I sacrificed sleep, weekends, peace of mind, vacations, time with my children, and in some ways even my first two marriages. I overrode my gut instincts, which were telling me to slow down and that I was focusing on the wrong things. But I was too busy chasing the degree, the title, the corner office, the external approval, and the dangling carrot of “someday” that promised to finally let me exhale.
Let me tell you, that “someday” never came. Instead, I crashed out in what I sometimes call a nervous system existential crisis. Full stop. I chose to end my career with a screeching halt, and it would be some time before I learned what I was truly seeking.
I imagine you have at least a bit of this story in you. You work hard, and no one doubts your effort. But have you ever noticed how rare it is for people like you (and me), the driven, the capable, and the relentless, to pause and ask: What if happiness isn’t at the finish line? What if it’s a minute I haven’t chosen today?
Here’s what I see as a wildly misguided truth: Most people will slave for years chasing something they believe will bring them joy, but they won’t spend one intentional minute choosing joy now.
You’re not most people, though. You’re reading this because something in you is awake enough to feel the dissonance.
Let’s talk about neuroscience for a second. In my work it is the underpinning for everything. Your brain is a spectacular pattern-recognition machine with one basic function: to survive. One of its many goals is to be efficient, and so it automates habits to save energy. And guess which habits it tries to form? Whatever ones you feed into the system as being of importance! Hustle. Worry. Waiting. You build a neural fortress around “I’ll be happy when…” and reinforce it with every delayed gratification and every future-anchored hope.
Unfortunately, your brain doesn’t care whether a pattern serves you. It doesn’t even care if it is completely counterproductive. It only cares whether it’s repeated.
So, if you continue to think thoughts like: “I’ll feel good when I finish law school, get the job, make partner, buy the house, lose the weight, finally feel worthy”—your brain believes it. It deeply wires it in, just as data can be hardwired on a computer. It makes you a master at deferring joy and postponing peace, in such a sly way that you become so accustomed to waiting that you forget how to simply be.
A tricky piece of the puzzle is that you could keep winning. You could keep grinding, you could keep climbing and continue collecting milestones. And at times, it could still feel hollow, because your happiness was never engineered to be the trophy (or prize) at the end of the race. It’s a state of engagement, not an achievement.
This may be frustrating to hear after everything you’ve worked for. I know it was for me. I felt like I was doing everything right, everything that I had been told to do to achieve success. But it never fully scratched my itch. It doesn’t mean your ambition is wrong. It means it’s time to realign the equation.
You’ve likely spent thousands of hours preparing, perfecting, and practicing. That’s how you have gotten to where you are. But I invite you to look at things a bit differently. What if you took just one minute to ask yourself: What makes me feel happy, in the moment-to-moment passing of my life? How can I start to practice it more in my day-to-day in a way that offsets the notion of delaying happiness?
That doesn’t mean that everything is perfect. Sometimes things are going terribly! But you are acknowledging that your nervous system, your emotional baseline, and your overall well-being are not side projects. They are the foundation. For everything. Joy isn’t a reward for suffering. It’s a skill.
And like every skill, it strengthens with repetition. Whether that means taking a walk when you’d normally sit all day, eating an incredibly satisfying lunch away from your desk, or watching a bit of comedy on an intentional break.
You already know that your brain releases feel-good neurochemicals, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin, when you hit a goal. But it also happens when you feel relaxed, connected, and present. That means happiness is biologically accessible at any moment. But only if you’re willing to interrupt the pattern that says you have to earn it first.
Maybe you’re afraid that choosing happiness now will make you soft. As driven professionals, I know we thrive on being hungry and ambitious. That’s just old conditioning talking.
Neuroscience shows us that positive emotional states improve problem-solving, resilience, and motivation. The irony is that choosing happiness doesn’t make you less driven. It makes you more effective. Think of it like this: a well-rested runner doesn’t stop running. They run better.
One of the most radical things you can do in a culture that idolizes burnout is to choose to feel good before you’re finished. Take a look at your life and say: I’m allowed to enjoy this now, even while I’m building, and even while I’m just figuring it out.
There is a version of you who already knows how to do that. That version of you isn’t waiting for the external win to feel the internal exhale. That upleveled, calm avatar of your own making can access a sense of satisfaction in this very moment, because you will have consistently practiced what it feels like.
The good news is that you don’t need to overhaul your life to meet that version of you. You can just choose to spend one minute differently. I’m talking about one minute without any shoulds, or musts, or deadlines that never stop coming. One minute where your nervous system doesn’t feel hijacked by your calendar. One minute where the voice in your head shifts from being a drill sergeant to a calm hum without expectations.
What would that minute look like for you? Then, expand it into an hour.
Would you walk without your phone? Would you call someone who makes you laugh? Would you close at least half the tabs on your computer without remorse? You may think you don’t have time. A time scarcity mindset feels as though it is increasing. But the truth is, you’ll make time to toil away for your future, won’t you? So, how can you argue against making time to support your present? I’m not saying that you have to quit chasing the dream. I’m saying you just don’t have to sacrifice your sanity on the way there.
It’s important to remember that the same part of your brain that clings to future outcomes is fully trainable. You can teach it to value the here and now. You can wire it to notice things that create happiness in the moment that you may have been overlooking when your eye is only on the proverbial prize.
The question isn’t whether you’ll work hard for what you want. You already do that. The real question is: Will you also work—gently, deliberately, daily—for the happiness you’re already capable of feeling?
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