Why Being Comfortable and Being Happy are NOT the Same

Call me basic, but I have always loved the band Sugarland. Their songs are always fun to jam to and just seem to speak to me. One that has been a favorite of mine for most of my life is Something More. If you’re not familiar with the song, here’s the lyrics to the chorus:

There's gotta be something more

Gotta be more than this

I need a little less hard time

I need a little more bliss

I'm gonna take my chances

Taking a chance I might

Find what I'm looking for

There's gotta be something more

Good stuff, right? You can NOT tell 5th grade me that wasn’t a good song to listen to when dramatically looking out the window on a long car ride, pretending to be in a music video. (Yes, that actually happened..)

Sure the song is about wanting “more” out of life, but I didn’t really understand the meaning of the song until I lived that feeling of “wanting more”.

Have you ever had that? The desire, or rather, the knowledge that there is more out there for you?

I will be honest, I had it pretty darn good in high school. I was a straight-A student, had won lots of awards for my various activities, and had scholarships for college rolling in right and left. My adolescent-version of money, success, and fame had been achieved. By conventional means, I was happy, and in some ways I was. But sometimes I felt as if I was happy because I was supposed to be, not because I truly felt happy.

When I arrived at college, I prepared myself for what I thought would be an unenjoyable and mildly-lonely grind like high school. And I started off by doing all the right ‘things’ that I thought would make me happy: joining clubs and organizations, doing all the homework for my classes the night it was assigned, and trying my hardest to be best friends with every girl on our dorm floor.

When I left to go home for winter break after my first semester of college I did not want to go back in the spring. I couldn’t figure it out- I had gotten a 4.0 my first semester of college, I was on a competition team for one of my clubs, and I was working hard to maintain friendships with lots of people. What was the issue?

As I’m sure you can infer, I did grudgingly return for my second semester. And to be completely honest, it didn’t start off all that much better than the first. I continued the same habits as the first semester, once again enjoying it just as little.

“And I have to do this for FOUR YEARS?”

But suddenly, something happened: About 8 weeks into the second semester of my freshman year I felt like I could do better. I began to lose interest in my clubs and stopped attending the meetings because I felt like I had to. In fact, I quit some of my clubs. I put a little less emphasis on people I felt like I should be friends with and put a little more emphasis on the people I wanted to be friends with. I stopped stressing out over homework at tests (although my mother, who fields all my finals week phone calls, would beg to differ). At first I was scared.

“Is this what burnout feels like?”

“Have I peaked?”

I tried to resist it, but then I let it take over. This feeling of finding happy was pretty cool. I was fairly comfortable with my high school and early college life, so I thought it’s what made me happy. But comfortable and happy are not synonyms. By getting out of my own way, I was able to find what I was truly missing: happiness.

In my experience the recipe for happiness has two ingredients: enriching and challenging. Take your college classes, for instance. You’d think that the easier, the better, right? Folks, I will tell you I’d rather have an overly difficult class than a boring 3-credits that’s a waste of my time. The best classes, and the classes that make you the happiest, are the ones that are both moderately challenging and interesting to you.

When I stopped doing the things that were supposed to make me happy, I noticed that I found something more: I was able to find more enjoyment at my job. Scheduling a night with friends didn’t feel like just an inconvenience I was expected to pencil in. I was able to focus on the things that mattered to me without feeling like I was confined to a “template” of what happiness was.

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: If you feel yourself starting to get too comfortable with your life, take a step back. What would you like to be doing? What is missing? Are you happy?

There’s gotta be something more...