Happily Sad

The all-time bestselling product is impossible to bottle.

It’s the secret behind some of the biggest brands in the world today.

Coca-Cola doesn’t sell sugar. It sells happiness in a can.

McDonald’s doesn’t sell food. It sells happiness in a box.

“I just want to be happy,” Gary Vaynerchuk proclaims at the start of every video: “Don’t you wanna be happy?”

The answer to that should be no.

We can’t be happy all the time. Nor should we want to be. Even if we could inject happiness (and many people try) it never lasts long. Happiness is not the point.

Happiness is a vague idea — a way to describe the handful of hormones that make us sociable and keep us alive.

One — Dopamine — isn’t related to satisfaction as many people believe. It’s our get-up and go; The hormone that drags us out of bed and on the hunt.

Happiness comes from being unsatisfied; From working towards a goal. It doesn’t even matter what the objective is.

As long as we progress towards a stated goal, even our sadness or dissatisfaction has a purpose. It’s part of the struggle.

That’s why you can’t buy happiness and happiness never lasts.