Did you know that the pursuit of happiness is one of the constitutional American rights?

I didn’t know that either until I had to study for the naturalization test a few years ago.

Which is funny, because something important enough for the Constitution is something we seem to misunderstand all the time.

Mostly by treating happiness like a retirement plan. Suffer now, relax forever.

Like there’s some final level where confetti falls from the ceiling, a choir starts singing, and from that point on you just remain... happy.

Permanently.

Like a man on vacation who already set his out-of-office.

That part feels suspicious.

Because what was clearly missing from the “Intro to Happiness” training we all never got is this:

Happiness was never supposed to be permanent.

It was supposed to move.

When I was a kid, I could feel truly happy just because we had dumplings for dinner.

Peak life.

Then I grew up, moved out, became a student, and started living like a person who could eat dumplings whenever he wanted.

So I did.

And then I really did.

Night after night. Quarter after quarter.

And guess what happened to my happiness?

It got bored.

The happiness curve went from delight to normal to meh to I can’t even look at dumplings anymore.

Classic diminishing returns.

And yes, this works for almost everything.

Even the stuff we swear will totally change our lives this time.

It usually doesn’t.

Or rather, it does for a minute. Then your brain gets used to it and moves on.

Of course, there is one exception.

My marriage seems to work in reverse. I get happier with it over time.

(Honey, if you made it this far, thank you. You may now return to Bridgerton. Don’t worry, we still haven’t cancelled Netflix)

But a good life was never supposed to be happiness only.

It also includes boredom, grief, frustration, calm, joy, meaning, irritation, and those weird beige Tuesdays. That’s the package.

We can only recognize happiness because it contrasts with the rest.

Which means the point is not to make happiness permanent.

The point is to catch it before the slide gets too steep.

There are levels to this game.

After playing in the professional misery league for years, I’ve decided to spend some time in the amateur division.

Mostly for personal growth.

So here’s my tiny game for this month:

I added one word to my reminders.

Escalator.

Because the escalator is always on, and it always goes down.

If I do nothing, the ride tends to look something like this:

happy -> excited -> content -> indifferent -> disappointed -> sad -> miserable -> hopeless -> depressed

Cheerful visual, I know.

So my goal is not to reach permanent bliss.

My goal is much simpler: Don’t slide too far.

Ideally, not below “sad”.

Honestly, setting the bar low gives us amateurs a real competitive advantage.

The rule is simple:

Notice little bumps that interrupt the ride down.

And if there are no bumps, create one.

Over the past few days, here were mine:

And just like that, the floor moved a little.

Not a lot.

But enough.

Maybe happiness is not something we keep.

Maybe it’s something we restart.

Like a Wi-Fi router.

Annoying. But effective.

Till next time.

10 Things You Don’t Realize Are Draining Your Energy Every Day - 5 min read.

A helpful little audit for anyone wondering where their energy went, besides work, news, and being a person.

How to Make Hard Work Feel Easy - 6 min read.

Apparently, the problem is not that we’ve become weak little babies. The problem is that boring work, tempting alternatives, and low energy make everything feel heavier than it needs to. Worth reading for the practical framing alone.

What we talk about when we talk about giving up - 15 min read.

This is not a productivity article, which already makes it refreshing. It helps explain why quitting feels so uncomfortable - and why sometimes the smart move is to admit the deal just sucks.

The best part is that you do not just hear people talk about process, you get to see the drafts, markups, doodles, and false starts. That makes the whole thing feel concrete instead of lofty. It is great if you like knowing what the work actually looked like before it got good.

Three things:

Everything else is optional.

Office-First Sprinting: In a February 2025 memo to teams working on Gemini, Brin said people should be in the office at least every weekday and called 60 hours a week the sweet spot for productivity.

White-Coat Reviews: Google’s founders were reported to put on white lab coats when it was time to approve major new products. Silly on the surface, useful underneath - it turned big product calls into a deliberate ritual instead of just another meeting.

Dogfooding on the Commute: At a Stanford panel in late 2025, Brin said he uses an unreleased Gemini Live model during his commute to ask dense questions like data-center power and cost math. He tests the product in the cracks of the day, not just in formal demos.

Weekly Question Pressure: In Google’s early years, Page and Brin used the weekly TGIF all-hands as a standing feedback loop where employees could ask hard questions directly. That built a cadence of real-time challenge instead of letting issues marinate in side channels.

Failure Budget Mindset: Brin’s blunt rule was that the only way to have success is to have lots of failures first. Less inspiration-poster energy, more portfolio strategy - run enough shots that misses become part of the system.

Proof Before Leap: Page and Brin built Google as a research project in 1996 and did not leave Stanford to start the company until 1998. They let traction, system performance, and user pull do some of the decision-making before making the career jump.

Bare-Minimum Intolerance: Brin warned that people doing the bare minimum can hurt team morale, not just output. That is a very specific management heuristic: low effort is contagious, so standards have to be social as well as technical.

Startup-Speed Reset: During Google’s scramble to catch OpenAI, Brin pushed for the company to move closer to startup speed and take bigger risks instead of letting too many people veto products. His decision rule looked like this: fewer blockers, faster approvals, more bets.

Hard-Problem-First Thinking: The broader X system built inside Alphabet used a rapid evaluation process that killed about 90% of ideas early and favored tackling the hardest constraint first. Brin helped create that culture, which is basically anti-wishful-thinking in organizational form.

Ever feel like your favorite apps keep getting worse in oddly specific ways? This clip turns that vague suspicion into a very clear joke, and the joke works because it feels a little too familiar.

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