You Can’t Buy This Kind of Happiness
Share
We live in a world that sells happiness by the pound. It comes in a crisply sealed box from Amazon, smells like a new car, and looks like a perfectly curated vacation photo. We're told that contentment is something you acquire—a product to be unboxed, an experience to be consumed. And we chase it, constantly seeking that next jolt of novelty, that little spike of wonderful that comes with the "new."
But as makers, we know a secret. We know that the fleeting thrill of consumption is a sugar rush, not a nourishing meal. We know that true, lasting satisfaction isn’t something you can add to a shopping cart.
It’s something you have to build.
The Maker's Antidote to the "Happiness Treadmill"
Psychologists have a term for that cycle of chasing the new: the "hedonic treadmill." It’s the simple, infuriating human truth that we quickly get used to good things. The joy of the new tool fades. The incredible promotion becomes, well, just your job. Your brain adapts, your emotional thermostat resets to its baseline, and you find yourself looking for the next fix. It’s an exhausting, endless scavenger hunt.
But the workshop offers an off-ramp.
The act of making is the polar opposite of passive consumption. It’s a slow burn, not a flash in the pan. The satisfaction isn't delivered to you at the end in a shiny, finished package. It’s earned, shaving by shaving, in the quiet moments of deep focus. It’s found in the struggle.
Finding Joy in the Friction
Think about the last time you were truly lost in your work. Maybe it was wrestling with a piece of wood where the grain fought you at every turn. Perhaps it was the meditative focus of getting a line just right, a curve so perfect it could only be judged by hand.
These moments are often frustrating. They are difficult. They are, as I like to say, intentionally hard. In a world obsessed with convenience, we choose the path of friction. Why?
Because the meaning isn't just in the finished product; the meaning is forged in the problem-solving. The joy isn’t just in the smooth, final surface, but in the memory of the struggle to get it there. Every challenge overcome, every mistake corrected, every tiny decision made—these aren't just steps in a process. They are the building blocks of a deeper, more resilient kind of happiness. You aren’t just being given a feeling; you are constructing it from effort and focus.
Raising Your Own Thermostat
Here’s the most powerful part. The joy of having the finished piece will eventually fade. That’s just how our brains are wired. It will become another beautiful object on a shelf.
But the satisfaction of making it—that doesn’t fade. The memory of the smell of the wood, the quiet rhythm of the work, the pride in the skill you’ve honed—that becomes part of you. It becomes woven into your personal baseline.
The work raises your thermostat.
Engaging in active creation doesn’t just give you a temporary mood boost. It fundamentally elevates what "normal" feels like. It builds a foundation of contentment that is immune to the whims of the market or the next shiny object.
Lasting happiness isn’t something you find. It’s something you painstakingly, intentionally, and imperfectly make.
- Brad