Good morning friends,

I trust you're well as we descend into the end of the year. Regardless of how good or bad your situation is or your year has been, you will be stronger for it. I think strength in this form is what truly moulds our self-assurance. Obviously, if it's been a great time, your self-belief is unlimited. Borderline out of control. But if you've had a bad time, you know that you'll come off better from it.

I see lots of content online now of people saying they want complete freedom and to travel the world. The issue here is, I think people think that will give them immunity to problems. Problems, no matter how successful you are, will never go away. This is why my opening message can apply to anyone at any particular time.

By going through it, we become better. Even when it's as worse as it could be. I feel like perspective is handy here. Either from a trusted friend to reassure you or just introspectively. You know when you get jealous of someone having a better time of it than you, there will be someone who is thinking that about you. There will also be someone in a much worse situation than you. Even if this only creates a fleeting moment of gratitude, it's certainly worth tapping into when you're looking for hope.

Today's letter comes from some thoughts recently about happiness. There has been plenty of research and content about this over the years that I'm sure you'll have perused however I want to challenge your thinking today with an alternative view. We all want more happiness right? We do more things to be happier. But having gone through this myself, I think this can lead us down a path toward misery. Let me elaborate.

We aren't happy, therefore we do more. We find things to do or just things themselves to fill our time and head with distractions. We continue to snowball these distractions and convince ourselves we are happier. We fail to realise that the things making us unhappy are still there and have been the whole time. By ticking off our happiness checklist, we blind ourselves of the most important things that should be on our list: things that make us miserable.

Happiness does not exclusively come from doing things you love. They are the luxury. True happiness comes from removing the things in our lives we despair. If you have a job you hate, toxic friends or a rubbish commute, you'll never be able to feel happy until these are eliminated. It is initially more relief than happiness when this happens but it ultimately allows you to be happier in life. As I say, your coffees, your walks, your hobbies. These will all just be escapisms and pain-numbing until you bite the bullet and take care of the things that make you unhappy.

And as life tends to work, these things that make you unhappy will usually be the hardest, most difficult to deal with. But the trade-off is worth it.

I trust this provides you with hope in the new year and I sincerely wish you continue to build the life you want and beyond in 2025.

Best,

Lawrence