What do you consider as your ultimate measure of happiness, or rather, how does one achieve happiness? Is it something to be achieved or just a mindset?
Some might base their happiness on accumulated wealth or perceived success. Others might say they can only be happy until they reach their next milestone. However, Delos Chang is a believer in finding equanimity and happiness through what we have now while also taking calculated risks for the things we want to achieve. According to the tech entrepreneur turned investor, the art of fulfillment comes from not just “doing what you love” but “loving what you do” as he believes.
Chang states, “Fulfillment is an art, and I don’t have all the answers. I can only speak to what makes me feel grounded. The first step is tapping gratitude as a powerful emotion. No matter what situation we are in life, we can all think of things that we are grateful for: our friends, our health, even just existing in the present moment. Doing so keeps us off the hedonic treadmill and puts things in perspective. A fun gratitude thought experiment: I like to think that if I could re-roll the birth lottery again, I’d be born somewhere completely different with disparate choices, values, actions. I certainly wouldn’t be where I am now, I’d be on a different path. That’s not a nihilistic statement or normative judgment, by the way, it’s just an empathic viewpoint because you realize that nobody makes it 100% alone, and we all are lucky to some extent.”
With regards to pursuing our goals and taking risks, even though they might not be comfortable:
“When it comes to taking risks, we are making a choice: experience the pain of absence or experience the pain of action. A simple example would be going to the gym, but this model applies to more complex life situations too, like leaving the comfortable 9-5 to build that business you’ve always dreamed of. The pain of action of living heavyweights at the gym is acute but temporary. The pain of absence, however, is less acute but long-lasting, even negatively compounding, like experiencing deteriorating health from a sedentary lifestyle. These second-order consequences are like nature’s way of filtering out those without a sense of deferred gratification: life’s repeated marshmallow test. So, I find that grounding myself first creates room to take such risks. Without our happiness contingent on arbitrary moving goalposts, we are free to let the pain of action pass through. That might come in the form of rejection, failure, loss, but instead of fearing it, we simply make room for it. Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”
According to Chang, having complete freedom of location and freedom of time has been a rewarding part of his journey thus far. But looking back, it was the process of getting there that he cherishes the most.
Chang contemplates, “We joke in my industry that may be the real gains were the friends made along the way. But it’s true, looking back, it was always about the climb and the people climbing with you. Of course, it’s nice to hit material goals too, but I think that if one could magically teleport to the summit, many would ultimately find achievement without struggle unfulfilling. Maybe it is a privileged opinion to have, but success and failure, there is a beauty about them both.”
