Every Monday, we send out a short Daily Chase essay built off an idea we’ve explored in a recent episode — a single thought or idea worth starting your day with.
If you’d like to read more of these, you can find them here.
It’s worth asking ourselves if we might be training ourselves for unhappiness.
Not on purpose, of course, and not in some dramatic fashion. But training ourselves, consistently, nonetheless.
Every time we optimize for fast and convenient — the infinite, time-sucking scroll, the expectations of next-day delivery, the TL;DRifcation of everything — we’re training our nervous system to expect immediate return.
And then we wonder why the things that actually matter feel so hard and so far away. But it’s not a mystery. The important things don’t abide by the laws of convenience culture.
Health requires consistency, not quick fixes. Relationships require presence, not quick texts. Wealth requires patience, not quick profits. Purpose requires persistence, not quick wins.
If we’re not careful, we’ll accidentally train ourselves to seek satisfaction in only the inherently unsatisfying. We’ll keep searching but never get any closer to the destination.
We can’t change convenience culture, but we can build emotional immunity to the many distractions it offers that stand in the way of our actual happiness. We can give them less of our time, energy, attention, and money.
We do that by deliberately choosing the slow thing. The effortful thing. The thing that requires us to show up again tomorrow, again the day after, and again the day after that. We do that by creating useful friction — not because it's some noble task, but because it’s the only thing that actually works.
We’re kicking off our latest challenge today — 21 days to focus on what creates real, lasting happiness. Join us!
This came just at the right time. Everyting noted here resonates true with me. Thanks!
Loved today’s prompt. I call it an “anti-gratitude” list 👏