2026 Won't Make You Happy But Work Can
If you ask people what they want from life, the most common answer is:
“I just want to be happy”
I was watching a Netflix documentary about Eddie Murphy. In a 1987 clip he said:
“I guess I’m a little more paranoid than I used to be. On everything. Socially I am a little more paranoid. Emotionally I am a little more paranoid. Success and power kind of isolates you. And you get confused because you start thinking - if I have this and I have that, if I can do this and I can do that, how come I am not happy all the time. And then you realize that nobody is happy all the time. I’d like to be happy. I’d like to be married. I’d like to have some stability emotionally.”
Even those who reach the pinnacle of success wrestle with the same questions:
What is life about?
What should I do next?
Why am I not happy all the time?
But if you ask people what “happiness” actually means, most can’t answer it clearly. It’s fuzzy. Abstract. Not tied to any daily action that would lead them there.
In the same documentary, Seinfeld offers something wiser:
“In show business you receive the greatest flattery and the greatest venom, and they are both lies. So you’re left with - ‘well I think I gave my best. And that should be it.’”
There is so much wisdom in those two lines because what Seinfeld is really saying is:
The process is the reward.
Doing your best work - not for praise, not for applause - but because it’s the only thing that you can control is what will lead to happiness.
Cal Newport calls this “Deep Work”.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it “Flow”.
Ryan Holiday calls it I call it “The Obstacle Is The Way”.
I call it: “Doing Hard Things”.
The truth is that life is hard at every level. It is hard for the poor who are trying to survive. It is also hard for the rich who are burning with envy because their neighbor is richer. It is hard when you have nothing. And it is hard when you have everything.
Happiness isn’t some warm permanent place you reach. It shifts with every stage of Maslow’s pyramid. And every time you think you’ve arrived, the summit moves again.
Andy Grove wrote in High Output Management that a manager’s job is to help people move up Maslow’s pyramid - from security to self-actualization - through meaningful work. Not entertainment. Not comfort. But work that matters.
So if not “happiness”, then what?
Work, my friend. Work.
Make your work the source of your joy. Build the muscle of showing up. Do the things that are hard for you so that you can tell yourself: “I did it”.
The people I admire - the Buffett and Mungers of the world - lived long, meaningful lives not by chasing happiness but by never stopping the work. They kept using their minds. They kept making progress.
You and I should do the same. We should look for things worth struggling for. We should choose our mountain and carry the weight. Because what most people call “happiness” is often just a byproduct of conquering hard things.
Useful Idea
Stop chasing happiness. Start chasing hard things. Because when you look back at your life, you will find joy in the hard things you conquered, not in the easy things you cherished.
Happy 2026! May this year challenge you in all the right ways.
See you next Sunday.
👋 I’m Harsh. I collect useful ideas to win in business and life.
Here’s where I spend most of my time:
iDeals Virtual Data Rooms – building a $1B business by helping dealmakers close deals faster
M&A Community – uncovering personal stories and strategies of M&A, private equity, and investment banking leaders
Happy Ratio – growing a food company the hard way: profit-first, purpose-led
Marcellus Investment Managers – evangelizing long-term investing to build financial independence
Harsh Batra
(LinkedIn)