the problem with happy people:

- most people navigate life totally intuitively

- on the surface it looks like everyone kinda does the same things (go to school apply for jobs date) but with VASTLY different results

- our lives fracture along much more subtle lines than most of us notice. it's not about WHAT u say when approaching a cute girl, it's HOW you say it. it's not about talking yourself up in an interview, it's about HOW you talk yourself up. but the "how" is achieved via a whole stack of invisible worldviews and assumptions

- it takes someone who is compulsively analytical + SUPER interested in people + non threatening enough that people open up easily to break down what those invisible assumptions are

- and then you have to be mentally flexible + really good at operating with grace in discomfort to reorient your brain and practice this new way of moving in the world

- i am sort of this person or i am trying to be anyway. i write down the observations on my substack and try to apply them with variable success

- that's why my substack is called OBSERVING happiness. bc every essay comes from observing people who do something really well seemingly effortlessly. what actually makes them different from the people who keep trying and failing?