In recent years, one of my friend has attended gatherings without much laughter, and his physical condition has worsened, causing concern for me and other friends. However, my friend himself says there is no problem and does not intent to seek improvement, so others can’t help at all. Upon careful observation, there are actually many people around me who are as numb to life as my friend, just with varying degrees.

Why do we become numb? You can imagine that our inner selves are like a cup, and our various emotions are poured into it like water, reacting with the space inside the cup, causing us to feel different things. But if we keep suppressing emotions in our hearts, it’s like the water poured into the cup doesn’t flow out, and the water slowly fills the cup. New water will be unable to be poured into the cup, unable to generate any new reactions inside the cup.

So people become numb because the space inside their hearts has long been filled with various emotions, making it difficult to react to new things. If you start to lose interest in the world, everything seems mundane, you haven’t been moved for a long time, then you may need to clean up your soul.

Do you still have expectations for daily life?

I call myself a hedonist, believing that life should be about constantly pursuing happiness, and everything should be handled according to this standard. But aiming for happiness is actually putting the cart before the horse. The more we pursue happiness itself, the harder it is to obtain it because happiness is actually a byproduct, something we get after achieving certain goals. Just like we feel happy when we drink a cold drink on a hot day, but we don’t really increase our temperature just because we want to experience this happiness.

From a biological perspective, happiness is also cited as a byproduct of action. Research shows that happiness is closely related to dopamine, with dopamine secretion peaking in the early stages of action; studies also show that actions that cause us to secrete the most dopamine are those with a 50% chance of success and a 50% chance of failure. Therefore, you can see it as a kind of incentive system that gives us more motivation to achieve our goals. 

If we don’t define the value of work, the value of work is just the salary.

From this, we can see that if we want to be happy, we must actually do something. If you want to be happy at work, you must face challenges. Work itself is for money, and this nature will not change, but we can attach different definitions to work. What I pursue in my work is “fun”. I am used to setting a goal for each job and adding as many “fun” elements as possible, treating work with a “playful” attitude.

When you set challenging goals for work, you can be happy when you achieve them. If you don’t consciously set goals, you will only have goals like “finish work on time,” which are almost always achievable, and the happiness you can get is much lower. I understand that not every job can give a positive definition, and likewise, jobs with positive definitions will not fall into your lap automatically.

Live in the moment, we need to make choices in the moment.

When facing some difficult tasks, I don’t object to choosing to escape, and sometimes escape is necessary, because we can’t always be ready to face, and we can’t handle it psychologically. But if we habitually escape, we will gradually lose the motivation to face and act, which also lose the opportunity to create happiness, start to find everything uninteresting, and everything troublesome, and spend time just scrolling with our phones. Everyone’s time is the same, do you think others have more time, or are you busy with “life”? If you feel that life has become dull and boring, then take action. Find ways to do things that make you happy, instead of convincing yourself that you can’t do it.

“Are you happy? Have you forgotten your ideals and can only be busy with life? Don’t think of your happiness ten years later because it’s too late.”

---------“Dear Me in Ten Years”

Simon So

Chief Experience Officer of Hantec Group