NOTE: This article is longer than my usual Mindset Monday posts, but there are a lot of new people coming to the Hardcore Happiness community, and I just (August, 2025, as I write this) launched a Hardcore Happiness podcast. So this is a good time to recap some previous articles, to establish a common vocabulary and understanding right from the beginning. Use this post as a refresher if you need to revisit the concepts as we go forward.
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There are a lot of people saying that it is a terrible idea to “chase happiness” as a life goal. And…they’re right, IF you have the “wrong” definition of happiness in mind.

Let me explain.

Happiness Definitions

Traditionally, there are two different but related phenomena that fall under the definition of “happiness.”



Hedonic happiness is the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. This type of happiness is now generally understood as the feeling of “fun” that comes from a day at an amusement park, or a great concert or party.

Hedonic happiness is random, usually short-lived, and frequently comes with an emotional “crash” afterward. Hedonic happiness is not resilient to tragedy, and is not long-lasting, for many reasons.

By all means, enjoy it whenever it comes. But realize it is generally not predictable or sustainable, it rarely involves self-growth or benefits anyone else, and therefore is not a great life goal.



Eudaimonic (you-die-mon-ic) happiness is the sense of satisfaction and fulfillment that comes when you live in accordance with your purpose; the meaning you have chosen for your life.

This kind of happiness was defined in the time of Aristotle, and now has a connotation closer to “well-being.” (Eudaimonia is Greek, and literally means “good spirits,” in the sense of the satisfaction that comes from pursuing the highest purpose you can imagine.) Eudaimonic happiness is the reward that comes from the long-term, active pursuit of your highest good, your purpose.

Eudaimonic happiness is a life goal. Some would say it is the only life goal worth pursuit (the Dalai Lama has said that happiness is the purpose of life). It actually grows stronger with hardship and makes you more resilient.



Think of it this way: hedonic happiness is a brief escape from discomfort—something that you hope happens to you. Eudaimonic happiness is something that you work towards, to maintain for a lifetime.

Let’s agree that—from here on out—when we use the word “happiness,” we mean the eudaimonic, well-being-and-satisfaction type, OK?

The big difference is that you actively create eudaimonic happiness, you don’t passively hope that it happens.

By the way, there is a whole branch of psychology, called positive psychology, that studies the effects of eudaimonic-type happiness.


When current thought leaders say it isn’t a good idea to chase happiness as a long-term path or profession, they are referring to hedonic escapism. Hedonic happiness is smiles and laughter for a time; eudaimonic happiness is a sustained effort to live the best life you can envision.

I add the adjective “hardcore,” as a reminder that you have to exercise discipline and personal responsibility to manage a long-term pursuit of your purpose and gain eudaimonic happiness. You will have to make clear, reasoned—and sometimes difficult—choices, set boundaries, and learn to protect your peace. Above all, you are responsible to translate your good thoughts into impeccable action.

Hardcore Happiness is my shorthand way of saying, “You may have to endure discomfort and sacrifice when you choose to create your own well-being, but the satisfaction of the eudaimonic path is worth the challenges.”

And there is a lot to it.

Let’s discuss some of the topics that come up regularly in our discussion of hardcore happiness. They are integral steps on the path to well-being and satisfaction in life.

Mindset Matters

Mindset is the lens through which you view the world, and the filter that informs your decisions and actions. Most importantly, you have the ability to choose your mindset, every minute of every day.



When you “set your mind” with intention, you actively choose your intellectual stance and emotional tone. And when you choose your thoughts and emotions, you move from reaction to action. This means you decide how you will feel and act, and are not at the mercy of external situations.



In short, mindset keeps you from being a powerless victim in your own life.



You didn’t sleep well, but had to get up early and go to work anyway? Decide to be grateful that you have a source of income and will be cheerful even though you are temporarily sleep-deprived. You have survived tiredness before.



Your co-worker is loudly voicing toxic opinions about religion/politics/whatever that are really starting to “get under your skin”? Realize how silly it is to let someone else be in charge of your feelings. Who cares what they think? Smile and remove yourself from the situation.



The only way people can make you feel bad is if you let them. Why would you let them?



Remember that even if you have no control of a situation, you are always in charge of how you choose to react.



I invite my students and clients to adopt this phrase that reminds me to choose my best mindset: “Decide that today is going to be a great day.” Write it down and put it someplace where you can see it.



Marcus Aurelius (in Meditations) said, "You always own the option of having no opinion.” Choose to ignore negativity and save your energy for something more important.


Pursue Purpose

You have the absolute, unalienable right to choose your own purpose: a meaning for your life. Any meaning you so desire.



My advice, when thinking about a guiding purpose for your life, is to keep two principles in mind:



1) Choose a purpose that is congruent with your higher self; something that you would be proud of and that interests you intensely. And



2) Choose a purpose that is aligned with a higher good, one that that benefits others.



Can you choose to be a murderer or a rapist or a drug addict? Sure. But those choices don’t fit even the most selfish of motives. No one wants to be dependent, institutionalized, incarcerated for life or executed.

(And please don’t commit the logical fallacy of thinking that I am implying that drug addiction is a choice. My contention is that addiction is not a choice people would make, even if unavoidable circumstances land them there.)

No one benefits from those kind of choices.



Once you have chosen your purpose, there is one other concept for you to master.



Immanuel Kant would have considered this last concept to be a categorical imperative; it must be followed in all circumstances and situations:



Never Give Up. Never Give In. Never Settle.


Express Gratitude


A sense of purpose is a powerful weapon against problems with physical and mental health and helps with anxiety and depression. It is also a source of gratitude, even on dark days. This is important, because—as another concept I pass on to students and clients says—Gratitude Defeats Despair.

Thankfulness is a powerful weapon in the battle to stay on track and remain optimistic. It is made even more powerful when you actively express it. One of the best ways is to write—by hand, paper-and-ink—about it. Every day, write about the things for which you are thankful, in a gratitude journal that you have for that purpose alone.

Do the Right Thing

Your emotions are a powerful compass as to whether or not you are on your “right” path. Do what feels right; what you instinctively know to be correct.

This is not a deep philosophical paradigm. Just do what you know to be the right thing.

Forget peer pressure and social media trends and others’ remonstrations. Decide what you - in your most authentic heart - know to be the right thing, and don’t deviate from it.



Be kind, don’t gossip, etc. You know, basic social deontology. Set your parameters for what you believe is a good way to behave, and don’t let yourself be swayed from them.



This course of action is a part of mindset, will contribute to your eudaimonic happiness and well-being. It is a valid part of your personal purpose and will pay massive dividends in the gratitude department.

Did you have a rough childhood? Have you been betrayed by those closest to you? Has your life’s work been destroyed by petty and jealous people? Do you think you’re too young, too old, too sick, too poor, too lonely? Do Good Anyway.

Protect Your Peace

Vampires are real.

They may not lurk in the darkness and conspire to steal your blood, but they surely conspire to steal your energy. They look like toxic people and difficult workplaces, angry relatives and polluted cities.



Energy vampires are experiences that leave you sad and exhausted, and try to destroy your sense of peace.



If your positive mindset falters (or is pummeled into oblivion), these confrontational/bullying/negative/argumentative encounters can leave you literally drained.



You must protect your peace at all costs.

Without it, you are of little use to yourself, let alone anyone else.



Here are three primary safeguards you can use:



First, choose a mindset that is resistant to negative people and situations. Realize that their words and actions need not concern you, and let their antics pass you by like water from the back of the proverbial duck. Choose your mindset when you arise, and intentionally reinforce it immediately before entering a potential energy-suck situation.



Second, you almost always have the option to remove yourself from the situation. Just leave. Say (to yourself, if not aloud,) “I choose not to be a part of this.” If the situation is so adverse that it is breaking through your positive mindset, you don’t have to worry about appearances or hurting someone’s feelings, just go.



Lastly, if you frequently feel the need to remove yourself from a situation, you may need to remove the situation from you. Perhaps permanently.



“At all costs” is no joke. To protect your peace at all costs may involve leaving people, including loved ones and family. You may have to change jobs or move to a different city or state.



These are drastic, last-ditch measures to be sure, but all of them are better than the potential loss of your sanity, your health, or your life.



There are a few situations that are inescapable; that cannot be removed or abandoned.  Even in these most dire of circumstances, you can adjust your mindset to realize and accept the most fundamental realities of your existence.

Here is what underlies this whole discussion; why we are discussing any of this in the first place:


Practical Existentialism

Existential concerns, as the term implies, deal with the fact that we exist. This is another lengthy subject that doesn’t lend itself to the limitations of a simple primer of concepts.



Suffice to say that existentialism concerns itself with the “big” questions of our existence:



Where did we come from?

Why are we here?

Does my life have any meaning?

Where do we go when we die?



And many others.



A great part of the difficulty inherent in these questions lies in the fact that there are no absolute answers. In fact, these topics are what we call unfalsifiable in the parlance of science and statistics, which means we can’t come to a definitive conclusion.



What we are left with, then, is lore and conjecture. No matter what any “authority” figure may promise you, the best we can do in these matters is “hope,” “belief” and “faith.” And this might be enough for you; religion exists for this very reason.



Where else can you turn for answers when you are troubled by questions with no answers?



Remember that you are always in control of your own thoughts and feelings (mindset, again). In this context, I have found it useful to use and teach a concept I call Positive Opposites.



Positive opposites are thoughts that replace negative thoughts. These are not empty affirmations, but real-life positive realities that can subordinate negative thoughts to a place outside of your mindset. 


Did you just suffer through a break up? Instead of, “I’m so lonely,” think “I have so much freedom now!”



Have you recently lost a loved one? Think, “I am so blessed that our time on earth overlapped! That is extremely unlikely in the overall scheme of things, and I treasure every moment we had together.”



Are you terrified of your own mortality? Realize that the fact you know nothing about what comes next means it is possible that anything could come next.

 (Read that again.)

Chuang Tzu said, “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly.”



Not sure of why you are here, or what you are supposed to do? In a world where you have no set, predetermined purpose, choose to set your own.

It’s Up To You

It is difficult to fully understand “why we are here” from an existential standpoint. All of the great existential thinkers have wrestled with this concept, from Kierkegaard through Nietzsche, Sartre, and others, to researchers such as Csikszentmihalyi, Seligman, Dweck and their contemporaries, and existential psychotherapists such as Rollo May, Victor Frankl, and Irvin Yalom, et al.



The general consensus is that we struggle with meaninglessness in our lives, in the sense that in a few generations, no one may know that we ever existed. At first glance, this may seem to be a depressing state of affairs. In fact, it is the most liberating mindset you can have:



If your existence truly doesn’t matter in a permanent sense, you can be anything you choose. So choose something wonderful.



And this is the central point. You - and you alone - are responsible to choose a path that allows you to be truly, eudaimonically happy; to pursue your greatest good and highest purpose as you define it.



Lastly, happiness is intimately related to your mental and physical health and longevity.


Happiness is No Laughing Matter

Happiness is not a trivial concept. People who report greater levels of happiness have less stress, anxiety, and depression, and higher cognitive function, creativity, social connectivity and more.

Physically, happiness is correlated with many beneficial outcomes, like a stronger immune system, enhanced cardiovascular health, reduced inflammation, a reduced risk of chronic disease and a significant reduction in all-cause mortality.



TLDR: Happy people have improved mental and physical health, and live longer.



I have been around long enough to see many people become brittle and withered shells because they can’t find happiness. They end up becoming insufferable and their families put them in nursing homes. One day they just stop eating, and wait for death to overtake them - which it rapidly does.



Happiness is no joke. Pursue it like your life depends on it, because it just might.


The Shortest Line

Let’s say, for a moment, that we could measure exactly how much of your happiness is genetic—determined by your DNA (a significant amount actually is).

Maybe you are fortunate enough to have a happiness genotype (the way your genes are arranged) that has expressed itself in a phenotype (the way you came out, physically) of extreme happiness. You are one very happy person.

Or maybe you didn’t win the genetic lottery for happiness, and our genetic analysis shows that you are destined to be less happy than the average person.

It doesn’t matter.

A friend and mentor once told me, “The line of people who don’t want more money is the shortest line in the world.” As the years have passed, I have come to think that might be the second shortest line.

The shortest line is the line of people who don’t want more happiness.

The point is this: No matter what your baseline, biological level of happiness, everyone wants—and can get—more happiness in life.

For Example

Consider two people (that you probably know).

Person One works at whatever job pays the most for the least effort and “lives for the weekend.” There is a good chance that Person One did a brief stint of training, if any, for the job that has essentially been the same since high school.

This person binges some version of Netflix and Doritos after work and is continually in search of the next “good time.” Said “good time” most likely involves alcohol and/or recreational drug use. (BTW, I hate that artificial distinction: alcohol is a recreational drug.)

Person Two spent a considerable amount of time after high school learning a trade or getting a degree or apprenticing in a career of personal interest. People in the “Person Two” profile are passionate about their work, and while they love a fun weekend as much as the next person, they don’t share the same dread of Mondays. They learned to delay their gratification; to put the work in first so they could more fully enjoy life later.

Person Two finds a way to get regular exercise and would rather learn something or engage in interactive recreation than watch TV on most occasions.

Folks in the Person Two column have either not been interested in recreational substances, or have learned that too much of that stuff gets in the way of their well-being.

Go ahead; picture someone you know in each of these categories, then take this little quiz:

Which person

- Is more physically healthy?
- Complains less?
- Has a more positive overall outlook?
- Tolerates crappy days and tragic events better?
- Is on more meds?
- Is making progress towards more interesting job responsibilities?
- Looks forward to getting on with the day’s events?
- Is more satisfied with life?
- Enjoys greater long-term happiness?

There are individual differences of course, but on average, Person Two is happier and having an easier time in the negotiation of life.

And Person Two has less chance of chronic illness and mental health disorders, more friends and—again—a significantly reduced risk of all-cause mortality.

You can be Person Two, no matter which type you most closely resemble today. The difference?

Person Two has done the hard work.

To achieve eudaimonic happiness you have to be hardcore about the pursuit of work that you find to be satisfying and meaningful, even if it you have to put in long hours to get there. Even if it pays less, in the beginning.

You have to be relentless in the care of your mind and body, even when inertia and your “friends” want you to take the easy road.

Learn to say, “No.”

Learn to let the heartbreak of life’s tragedies become fuel for the fire of your hardcore happiness warrior spirit.

And then you become emotionally invincible.

Because you don’t depend on anyone or anything else to keep you afloat in the storms.

The vast majority of my blog articles and newsletters and books and videos and podcasts all deal with the details of how to attain hardcore happiness. There are specific, evidence-based actions you can take to gain eudaimonic happiness and well-being. At this moment, however, you have only one decision to make:

Who do you want to be?

Decide to be a happier person. Commit to the work. Adopt a Hardcore Happiness attitude.

And reap the benefits.

I believe that once you determine your mindset and are actively pursuing your purpose, you will start to add positive people and situations and leave negative circumstances. In this way, you build your reality in a way that supports and nourishes you.

In other words, Hardcore Happiness allows you to Create Your World.

Post-Script:

There are some days that, no matter what you try, you’re just going to feel sad. Everything reminds you of something that makes your heart break and all the usual things that you try to feel better may not work. On those days, immerse yourself in your work to be distracted and productive, and know - even if you can’t feel it - that tomorrow will probably be better.

 I am talking about situational dysphoria here; having a “bad day.”

If you suspect that you are chronically depressed, please see a mental health professional. I’ll be here when you’re ready to come back.



The Hardcore Happiness podcast is live - in video form on YouTube, and in audio form where ever you listen to podcasts. Tune in every Thursday for the latest episode. Click here to go to the podcast page were you can see past episodes and listen to the latest. Come subscribe so you never miss an episode.



To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, you can contact me on the Hardcore Happiness website, the comments section on my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page. If you have found value in this article, follow my Instagram account for daily insights, or my X account for occasional tweets. To support this community, you can donate through my Patreon account.




- JWW