Ramblings on happiness

For a couple of years now I've been reading/watching everything that fell into my hands about happiness. I accumulated a lot of ideas, but it's such a broad and subjective topic, that it's really hard to make a summary. I feel like now it's a good time to draw conclusions and structure these ideas into a blog post.

I always associated happiness with meaning. And finding meaning... is hard. We can find meaning in a small task we do today, but a year later it will seem pointless. I believe there has to be a grander scheme of things that drives us in our small daily tasks. A set of core values and ideas we truly believe in. This is what will help us pull through hard times and get back up in low moments. I still have to read "Man's search for meaning" by Viktor Frankl. He coined the term logotherapy, in which we heal by finding our purpose in life, as opposed to psychoanalysis where we find healing by going into the past and trying to make peace with the things that hurt us.

I think there are two areas that particularly influence and shape our happiness and that we are in full control of: how we spend our time and who we spend it with:

In a nutshell we spend most of our time working, doing home related chores or enjoying our hobbies together with our family, close friends and related colleagues.

Work is a very important part of our life: the most common question when you first meet someone is: what do you do for a living? I like to ask people what makes their heart beat faster (and just to make sure we're on the same page: from excitement, not from anxiety). This might not be necessarily what they work on, even though ideally it would be. The question might as well be: why do you wake up in the morning? And this brings me to this very important concept:

The reason to live sounds so overwhelming, I used to think that it should be something big and important, something that changes the course of humanity. Society showed me that to have a meaningful life I have to be the best at what I do, take important decisions that affect many people's lives (I remember once my grandma asked me: are you at least a team lead now?), be "influencial" and do well financially. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I'm growing old, but now I look at these ideas and they feel very wrong to pursue them for the sake of being successful. But I do think they might eventually come as a consequence of finding your ikigai.

In the western world ikigai is presented as an activity that:

• motivates us because the world needs it. For example you work in a restaurant as a chef and the dishes you make contain fresh and healthy ingredients. You help people eat healthy and incredibly tasty food. Apart from that, customers spend an enjoyable moment in the restaurant together with their family and friends.

• we love doing. When we work on it, we don't know when time flies. Is there anything that makes you feel like that? If not, then you have the whole life ahead to experiment and find it. For example getting so caught up in a book that we can't put it down, working on a puzzle, going down the rabbit hole when coding or fixing a bug. While we're in this section, we can't not talk about the elephant in the room: the concept of flow, a mental state in which a person is fully immersed in a feeling of focus and full involvement in the process of an activity. If you want to learn more about it, go and read "Beyond Boredom and Anxiety" by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. In the book Ikigai they give some tips and tricks on how to practice entering the state of flow:

• we're good at. I'm a strong believer that we can learn whatever we set our mind to. Training those neural networks in our brains can get us a long way, it's all a matter of practice. But I also believe that some things come easier to us because we're naturally inclined for them. A mix of genetics and being exposed to them as a kid make you predilect for certain activities. For example I noticed that I easily learn foreign languages. My mom also has this skill and she works as a translator. As a kid I always watched movies in other languages because in Romania all movies and shows are in original language with romanian subtitles.

• we get paid for. This is a tricky part and it's where most of us get lost. Many activities that are important are poorly paid because society doesn't always appreciate the most meaningful work. I always give the example of someone who works in agriculture producing food vs a software engineer coding a like button for some social media application. As of 2025, we all know who gets more money and has a ton of benefits and which work is more important. Without food none of us could survive, but without a like button I think most of us would live quite ok (maybe even better).

One thing I found interesting is that our ikigai can change over the course of a life-time and that's ok. Especially in our fast paced society, where skills that are highly valued today become obsolete tomorrow.

Being social human beings, our happiness is greatly influenced by the quality of our relationships. Surrounding ourselves with positive, supportive, and loving people is key to our well being. Knowing that we have people that can help out when we're in need is a great feeling, but in the book of happiness one main idea is that helping others is what makes us even happier. This is why voluntary work is good for the people that get help, but it's also beneficial for the people that offer their help. In general, I think we should practice more empathy and watch out for each other more, whether it's an old lady that needs help on the street or a close friend.

From this video on loneliness, one idea stroke me: in the past, people who weren't part of a community wouldn't manage to survive. In my world, being independent and being ok alone is a virtue, something everyone aspires towards. I grew up thinking that being strong means not needing anyone. But in the past years I've changed my mind: the real challenge that makes you strong is finding the right people that you are close to and that will unconditionally and happily help you out and that you unconditionally want to help out in hard times. I recently read this blog post that called these people the 3am friends: those that you'd call at 3am and provided that they don't turn off their phones when they sleep, they'll be happy to help you out. But it's not just about the hard times. In our daily lives, being surrounded by family and friends is essential. It's about eating together, playing games, dancing, watching movies, doing sports, having deep talks, learning from each other. And it's all about doing all this in person. Being connected online to people that are far away from us is great, but that shouldn't replace the connection with the extended family (the family and friends that are close to us). Another aspect is that the further away your extended family is geographically, the harder it is to keep in touch. A community needs time to build up and grow, so trying to build such a connection with someone far away will take a lot of planning and effort. The issue is that it's very hard to live close to your friends in cities where finding a flat in the first place is difficult. But I think it's worth trying.

So cool that you made it until the end (or did you scroll in dispair wondering why is this blog post so long? :P). In case you were wondering, I stole these ideas from the following books and videos:

1. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

An important disclaimer: I would say I'm what we call a priviledged person: I never had to worry about a rooftop over my head (my mom did that for me as a kid), had a happy childhood where I could go to school and spend a lot of time learning and my parents helped me out financially during university. My pursuit of happiness is very different than that of others, but hey, you're on my website, so I guess you already know that I'm talking from my perspective here.