How many articles have you briefly skimmed with a title similar to “50 ways to be happier,” or “Change these habits and your life will change?” How many times have you uttered the words, “I feel unsatisfied with life?”
You parous these “listicles” in hopes that one of the many “ways to be happier” will leap off the screen, slap you in the face, and change your life. However, in most cases you’re left with a feeling of, “that was a waste of time.”
I too, have been in that position, scouring the internet for the golden nugget of truth that would change my perspective, and thus, change my life.
I never truly found what I was looking for, or maybe I did, and I just didn’t like the truth behind what I was reading. I continued to live my life and learn. I adapted, I evolved, and I managed to discover more about myself than I even knew existed.
Over the years I’ve established these 10 hard truths to keep my life in check. You’re not going to read anything profound or mystical in this article. You’re just going to receive the information you need to get your life in order.
Unsatisfied vs. Clinically depressed
It is important to note that there are many circumstances where an individual should seek help from a mental health professional.
There are incredible resources available for treatment options. I have friends who have sought out clinical intervention and have greatly benefited because of it.
If you or a loved one is in need of help please visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration’s website.
Moving forward, this article is meant for those of you who need a kick in the pants. The ones who say, “I feel unsatisfied with life” and need a push to get out of the rut they’ve created.
How to fix what’s broken
I do not claim to be happy 100% of the time, or even 50% of the time.
Happiness is a work in progress that’s constantly competing with the high-paced, high-demand, technologically driven society that we live in.
However, when I was honest with myself about the central components of what gives life meaning, I came up with this list of ten hard truths.
1. You Have no Friends.
No I’m not talking about Jim, who you drink with after work, or Stacy, who really sucks but “she brings good energy for a night out.” I’m talking about legitimate connections and a strong community of interpersonal relationships.
I’m talking about people you can trust and be yourself around. People who will show you that you’re special because you’re you. Who, just by existing, encourage you to grow, develop, and become a better version of yourself.
You may be screaming, “EASIER SAID THAN DONE!” And I agree, but I’m here to scream back. THAT’S OKAY! Take your time, be selective. These people will end up being some of the greatest influences on your life. But just remember, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.”
So how do I find these types of friends?
Good question! Here’s my answer. Do things that you love to do. By pursuing hobbies that you love, you will, by default, meet others who share your interests. Now, if you’re saying to yourself, “I don’t have any hobbies,” don’t worry we’ll cover that later.
Some ideas to find friends:
- If you ski or snowboard. Find a local ski shop that organizes bus rides to a nearby mountain. Sign up and meet some friends along the way!
- Volunteer for a cause that you are passionate about. You’ll meet other do-gooders and you can discuss what brings you there.
- Find your community center. In my town, the YMCA acts as a hub of community engagement. People play basketball together, swim together, and even just sit down for a cup of coffee.
Now, one important thing to note is that you need to speak to others in order to create interpersonal relationships. You may have social anxiety or you may just down-right dislike people, but let me give you a new frame of reference.
The reasons we humans function the way we do is a product of evolution. In the grand timeline of human life, the world we know is very different from what we’ve spent millions of years surviving. Starting about 2.5 million years ago humans began to develop social skills as a means for survival.
This quickly became one of our strongest assets allowing us to survive through increased cognition, culture, and cooperation. An article from Scientific American states, “culture gives humans a survival advantage that is beyond the capacity of other animals.” Building social cohesion allows cooperating individuals to innovate and evolve their culture to pass onto the next generation.
Socialization is in our DNA and it remains a pivotal piece of the puzzle for present day humans. So be like your ancestors and go make some friends!
2. You don’t know how to be alone.
It may seem counterintuitive to go from saying you need to make friends, to saying you need alone time. For many people that may be true. If you are someone who already has a great time by yourself go ahead and skip to the next hard truth.
Right now, I’m speaking to those of you who feel miserable and stressed when you’re alone. The ones that use friends and family as a buffer from the frightening idea of time with your own mind. Or maybe you use social media, movies, and video games to fill the silent void that arises in a moment of isolation.
This can be particularly hard for those who have come from large, close-knit families. Maybe there was never a time when you needed to be alone. Maybe it was even discouraged.
As our society has slowly evolved to spend more time with our smartphones, our relationship with alone time has been inversely impacted.
Now at this point you’re probably asking, “why do I need to be alone to be happy?”
Well, it’s not so much the alone time that’s important, but what happens during that time.
It’s no surprise that our environment plays a large role in how we end up. This, of course, is due to the influence that others have on our lives starting with parent to child, and sibling to sibling, then teacher to student, and perhaps friend to friend. In the past decade social media has played a continually larger role in the thoughts, opinions, and interests of people all over the world. There are commercials that influence our wants, magazines that sculpt our desires, and news sources that tell us what they want us to hear.
With no shortage of influence it is with alone time that you can seek peace. Within that peace you have a chance to meet yourself. Speak about your past mistakes and make amends. Develop your own opinions, ask yourself hard questions and offer back just as difficult answers.
The most important person in your life is you! Although that sounds like a cliché, think about it like this; if you don’t take the time to get to know yourself you will be forever living with a stranger. If you don’t take the time to make peace with your mistakes you will be forever living with an enemy. If you don’t take the time to educate yourself you will forever follow others blindly.
So make that alone time a priority and get to know yourself.
3. You don’t workout.
I heard the collective groans as everyone’s eyes scanned this one but if you’re saying, “I feel unsatisfied with life,” this is an important one. These days, it’s no secret that exercise can do wonders for your mental health. Scientific studies have demonstrated the mechanism by which this occurs. However, I’m not here to force you to read a bunch of regurgitated information written by someone far smarter than I. If you want to learn more about the scientific benefits of exercise you can check out, Exercise for Mental Health published on The National Library of Medicine’s website.
What I am here to do is force you to read my baseless opinions. And it’s my opinion that exercise is real good for ya.
Revisiting our previous rant on evolution and humans in the modern world (the idea that we’re basically cavemen living in an advanced society) we can take a look at how millions of years of hustling to survive primed us to need exercise.
I’m going to make this quick and easy for those of you with the attention span of a squirrel. I’ll break it into 3 categories.
How we spent life for a long time:
Life for our ancestors was a careful balance between rest and movement. You had to conserve as much energy as possible because calories were extremely valuable. When it was time to eat, you had to hunt, gather, trap, etc. to get your meal. It wasn’t until way later in human evolution that we learned to preserve food, and even then, your next meal wasn’t guaranteed. We forget that movement was inextricably linked with survival.
How we spend life now:
Now, if you’re lucky enough to live in the first world there’s not much thought about how you’ll get your next meal. From where I sit I have access to dozens of restaurants, grocery, and convenience stores, and with a few taps of my phone I can have food delivered straight to my pie hole.
Why that’s bad for us:
As I said, movement is inextricably linked to survival. For millions of years if your ancestors didn’t move, they died. It’s hardwired into our system. Now we don’t have to move, and many of us rarely do. Here’s the thing, millions of years of evolution (or billions depending on where you start on the tree of life) don’t disappear in several thousand years. I can’t buy a gas powered car then all of a sudden decide it’s electric. Well… you can… but you’re not going to get far. You still need to do the appropriate maintenance to ensure the car’s longevity. You need to fuel it with gas, do regular oil changes, etc. And although you can exchange your gas powered car for an electric one, Elon Musk still hasn’t found a way for you to trade out your body.
To sum it up:
Your body is a product of millions of years of evolution meticulously tested and optimized for survival and advancement. Movement is intertwined with every fiber of your being and was a requirement for longer than your brain can even comprehend. The beauty of the human mind and body is how much of it automated. You don’t have to remember to eat. You just get hungry. You don’t have to remember to use the bathroom. You just get the urge to go. Your body needs exercise because it evolved around the very important fact that there was no other option for survival but to move, and to move fast, efficiently, and powerfully. You may not like to exercise but you have to feed the beast.
4. You spend way too much time on your phone.
Here’s another one that we all know but have a hard time changing. The reason is because, again, the human body evolved to produce feel good chemicals for actions that benefitted us. Nature’s little bribe.
Nature: “Hey.. Uh.. why don’t you go try that honey.”
Caveman: “But.. those little things guarding it hurt when they touch you.”
Nature: *smirk* “Just give it a try.”
Caveman: *gets stung 20 times* “mmmmm, honey is good :D”
In our little example you can see why honey, which can be a great source of energy for our caveman, would produce dopamine in the brain. This reward pushes the caveman to continue going back despite the risk of being stung.
Now smartphones, computers, tablets, etc. tap into that reward system giving you easy dopamine rushes in exchange for likes, comments, follows, so on and so forth.
I’m not the type of person that thinks social media = bad. If used correctly it can enhance your life in ways that weren’t possible in the past. I have discovered new hobbies on YouTube, and even took my career to the next level with educational content offered online.
However, I do think a happy medium needs to be achieved. That’s up to you to decide what that means, but a great way to start is to quit staring at your phone unnecessarily for a week or more to establish a baseline of how you feel without it.
Then inch your way back into the apps monitoring your mood the whole time. When you start to feel uneasy, depressed, anxious, jealous, etc. back off a little. Think of it like walking on a sheet of ice and testing what lies ahead with a long stick. If the stick breaks the ice, I go in a different direction. If I find that I can’t proceed any further without breaking through, then I know my limit.
5. You’re not good at anything
I know that sounds harsh but I say that with all the love of an Italian grandmother telling you you’ve put on a few pounds (it’s just an extra layer to keep me warm in the winter by the way). What I mean by this is not that you are unskilled or untalented. In fact, I’m saying the exact opposite.
Shameless plug here, if you follow me on instagram I recently put out a verse as a reel containing these bars: “I swear we all gifted sept we tricked to think we ain’t, so if you got some grit and if you give it what you can’t, then life is like a canvas filled with what you wanna paint”
I truly believe that each and every one of us is capable of more than what we give ourselves credit for, and far more than what others believe we can achieve. What are your passions? It doesn’t even have to be something you want to make money from. Maybe you like woodworking, or doing make up, or graphic design, or making music; writing articles, screenplays, or skits. Find what fills your belly full of fire and get good at it.
Having a passion or skill and being good at it adds a dimension to your character. It gives you something to hang your identity on. Are you the guy that goes to work and comes home every day then goes out on the weekends? Or are you the guy that works in marketing, studies Japanese in his free time, makes music, and creates content for an online audience? I’m using myself as an example, but which person sounds more interesting to be around? Find interest in yourself and you will want to spend more time in your own peace of mind. Then you will be well on your way to throwing out the phrase, “I feel unsatisfied with life.”
6. You’re scared of what others think
This one is pretty straight forward. You make way too many decisions based on the opinions of others. It’s important to note that this is very different from asking more experienced people their opinion and then using that to make an informed decision.
This is something like, “I don’t want to start pursuing a hobby in music because I’m scared that other people will think I suck.” Or, “ I would really prefer to live a simple life of traveling the country in a van but what would my parents think?”
WHO CARES! As long as you are making informed decisions based on passions and interests and creating a life that you want to live, then other’s opinions don’t matter. When you begin to make decisions for you and not for others you’ll start to see your life magically take shape the way you’ve always hoped it would.
When you build your life based on other people’s ideas and opinions then you’re living their life. How can you hope to attain the fulfilling outcome you want if you’re following others’ ideas and passions?
This seeps into all aspects of your life. Your friends. You won’t meet like minded people doing a bunch of stuff you hate. Your career. You won’t get to the top of your industry doing something that you don’t love. Your emotional wellbeing. You may always feel that you have something lurking just beneath the surface. A passion that burns deep within you, which you fight each and everyday to crush, in order to keep plugging away at the life that someone else told you to live. You’re jealous. You’re hateful. And now, you find yourself demeaning others who have achieved their dreams through sacrifice and hard work.
Stop listening to others and start pursuing the life you want to live!
7. You don’t get out of your comfort zone
This may be the most important tip in this whole article. Without conquering this step you may never be able to make the necessary changes to create the life you want. Each day you do the same thing. You may have the fleeting idea to join a gym or pursue a new hobby but that’s quickly dashed by the anxiety surrounding any break from your normal routine.
I get it. I feel this everyday. All the time. I am innately an anxious and obsessive overthinker. Since I was a child I could be frozen by my indecision and scared away from every dream by my anxiety. Everyday I wake up in a deep hole of self doubt and fear of failure, and everyday I crawl out hand after hand.
If I allowed myself to stay in that hole then I would never be where I am today and I would never have the aspirations that I have. I would continue to believe that I was incapable of achieving greatness and I would continue to look at those who have, as an alien race.
If you’re someone like me, it can all feel impossible. “Why should I even try if I know I’m going to fail?” I’m not going to sit here and say I got out of my comfort zone by sheer will alone. I had many people to inspire me along the way. From friends, to my amazing girlfriend, to YouTubers that I’ve watched build their channel over the years. Sometimes you just need a little inspiration. Someone to show you the path or someone to say they believe in you.
If you don’t have that, I’m here to say that I believe in you. Remember, “We’re all gifted sept we tricked to think we ain’t.” A great option if you don’t have a solid support system and some random delusional YouTuber isn’t enough, is therapy. Find a great therapist to encourage and support you. It’s someone to tell you when you’re being irrational and to point out your positive attributes. Another option could be a life coach.
Finding the right person could be a very difficult process but it’s not impossible. I plan to write an article and make a video on this topic in the future.
8. You can’t do what you want
What I mean by this is it feels good to be in control of your own life. You may be in a situation where you work long hours, giving you little to no time for anything else. Or you may be doing something for a living that you hate. Maybe you want to spend more time with your family. Maybe you have ideas that are amazing but your boss just wants to do it their way. Perhaps you wish you could hike more. Play more video games. Review food for a living. Whatever it may be, your current situation is holding you back.
How many of you have heard the saying, “Sometimes we have to do the things we don’t want to do.”? I think that’s relevant for things like owning up to your mistakes, but I don’t think it should ever pertain to spending your life working at a job that you hate. Or not pursuing your dreams to, “GeT rEAdY FoR ReTIrEmENt.”
I know that not everyone is in a position to make a change here and now, but everyone can play the long game. Start steering that boat on course. Educate yourself, practice your skills, build your connections, find your passions, and save your money. You should try to put yourself in a position where your life can’t be altered based on the thoughtless decision making of another person. There’s nothing that will make you say, “I feel unsatisfied with life,” faster.
9. You’re broke
They say money can’t buy happiness, but it sure as hell can buy you things that make you happy. And for those of you who are going to say, “well spending time with my family makes me happy and that doesn’t cost anything.” Well, yes it does. Time is money, as they say, and the more you have saved up and invested properly the more free time you can afford. Not to mention experts say it takes about $300,000 to raise a child, and that’s not including college if you intend to help them with that.
Studies conducted have shown that a certain amount of money can give you a higher level of satisfaction with your life. I’m not saying everybody needs to go out there and try to be a millionaire, but you need to make enough money to live the life you desire. That will look different for each person. That’s up to you to decide. Think about the end goal and then work your way back from there. Some non-superficial things that money can buy that will make your life better include:
- Better quality food such as organic and free range meats.
- Free time.
- Control over your life.
- Reduction of the stress surrounding bills.
- Better medical care.
Again, I know people aren’t going to read this and say, “Ohhh that makes sense I’ll make more money now.” But just as I said in the previous section everybody can play the long game. Educate yourself, practice your skills, build your connections, find your passions, and save your money. Most importantly do it with everything you have. Don’t think that going through the motions will produce the same outcome as going above and beyond.
10. Life’s A B*tch
The unfortunate truth is that sometimes you can do everything on this list and life can just deal you a terrible hand. Tragedies, medical issues, or downright bad luck can really make it difficult to enjoy life. There isn’t some magic pill that I can feed you to make those things go away or some way to logically explain why your 10x great grandpa is to blame. The only thing to do is to proceed forward with as much positivity and love as you can. When you operate at that frequency the energy you put into the universe will ultimately attract the same. Inspire others through your strength and courage, and when your day comes, you’ll be ready to take off like a rocket.
In Conclusion:
There you have it. 10 hard truths that govern my life. Being unsatisfied and unhappy is not a requirement. It is, however, hard work to eliminate those feelings, and the battle is constant. Never rest on your laurels. Always be the best person you can to those around you, and most of all, when you lie your head on your pillow at night, make sure you’re proud of the decisions you made. The goal is to never say, “I feel unsatisfied with life,” again.