Envy is the Enemy of Happiness

Summary: Competition and comparison should only be with yourself. Stay in your own lane, and get better every single day at being YOU.

As the entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant described it, “The enemy of peace of mind is expectations drilled into you by society and other people”.

Too many people nowadays are mimetically doing what everyone else is doing. Especially within high achieving high school students in Australia, there is some expectation that you will study Medicine or Law.

It is true that completion of either degree will allow for some guarantee of significant career stability and success, due to their perceived amount of prestige. However, many students neglect the intense nature of both professions; a career in Medicine means 5-7 years in Med School, a 1 year internship, 2-5+ years of residency and then years more of being a registrar to become a specialist. Basically, you’re committing to 12+ more years of formal education and insane working hours - I hear about junior doctors working for 80+ hours. Similar to medicine, law comprises of many more years of training, long hours and tough competition.

Don’t get me wrong, I think these are fantastic careers that would lead to an insane quality of living, are fulfilling and highly respected within society. Some of my closest friends and people who acted as mentors for me study med/law. If you decide to study medicine/law or are already in medical/law school, I give you my highest praise; the world needs your talent and you’re dedicating your life to helping others, which is among some of the most admirable things a person can do.

But I think that you should also recognise, and follow your own ambition; what’s not alright is if you decide to study medicine or law without considering all the other options and the bigger picture of what you’re comitting to. I believe that your youth, in high school and university is the time to explore and discover what you truly enjoy. Take risks and don’t do what everyone else does. Find your own unique path exploring what you love, and once you find that thing that makes you tick, pursue it with a relentless passion and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Never compare yourself to others - envy is the enemy of happiness. Besides, no one’s journey and circumstances will be exactly the same as yours, so why bother with comparison? If anything, try your best to learn from the highs and lows from their experiences and make some informed judgements on how you can become better yourself. That being said, there is a counterargument that was brought up by one of my good friends upon reading an initial version of this post, that is, “envy is also ur biggest motivation in some cases… i mean if there werent like better ppl out there, i wouldnt even study”, which is a fair point. I think it does depend on the type of person you are and what works best for you.

It’s been years for me, and I don’t think I’m even close to finding my true life passions. But that’s okay. Everyone has their own journey.

As another one of my good friends said, ‘u can flunk every exam and that's less of an L than getting forced into med’.

Another one of my mates said this: ‘It’s after a lot of shitty years, realising that my happiness doesn’t derive from fulfilling expectations of others. [Instead], it’s about fulfilling expectations of yourself’.

Life is single player. The only person you have to be better than is the person you were yesterday.

Live for yourself. If you don’t choose a path, life chooses one for you.

Comparison kills creativity; a Crayola may complain that it is not sharp enough, and a pencil may complain that it is not colourful enough. Never compare yourself with others, and be the absolute best at being yourself, because that’s who you’re in competition with.

Radical Open-Mindedness

Summary: Open-mindedness leads to opportunity. The more you try new things out, the more you learn. None of us actually know what we enjoy, until we try a wide range of things and identify what we enjoy. Throw shit at the wall, see what sticks.

Stumbling across his blog after scouring the internet for advice on choosing a career (which might be an interesting blog idea for later!), I sent one of my first cold messages to Max Marchione over LinkedIn.

We had a pretty incredible conversation over Zoom (as he was in San Francisco and I in Sydney) for the next hour and a half, taking a deep dive into each others’ lives; why Max dropped law, why he took a gap year, plans for university studies, the potential that startups have and what we were each working on in the near future.

At the end of the call, he dropped me his number and said that after I graduate high school (in around a year at the time), I should reach out and work as an intern for one of his companies, Next Chapter. Following up on Whatsapp, I decided to shoot my shot and ask for an internship at the start of Year 12, supposedly the most stressful and challenging year of secondary education.

Max’s similar radical open-mindedness came through, and I’ve been working at Next Chapter as a Strategy and Growth Intern for the past 2 months now. I can’t begin to quantify how much I’ve learnt through not only working for Max, but also introductions to insane community members in the fields of Entrepreneurship, Venture Capital, Angel Investing, Big Tech, Management Consulting, Investment Banking, Private Equity, and so much more.

Talking to people through cold messages is an incredible way to discover and learn more about the experiences you can have in life. I met the some truly incredible people all through cold messages and the introductions to others that followed.

My mum used to always say that you can only live the life of one person - and that’s true for the most part. But what she also said is that through talking to people, reading books and listening to podcasts, you can take away key insights revolving around what they’ve learnt throughout their lives.

One of the most amazing parts about virtual coffees, books and podcasts is that once you receive advice, it’s up to you to make judgement calls and decide whether or not you should implement it into your life. No obligation, increasing the amount of critical thinking you do and proves that you truly want to improve yourself.

Finding Comfort Within Discomfort

Summary: I think there’s a beauty in seeking discomfort. It’s only when we do something that we don’t want to do that we grow as people. If we marinate in comfort, we become stagnant as human beings.

I think what was really interesting about being radically open-minded is that you also need to be comfortable with discomfort. But how?

You have to callous your mind by doing weird shit that you’ll get judged for.

I applied for the Startmate Student Fellowship (I was the youngest ever fellow, at a university student program with a 20% acceptance rate) and landed an internship at Next Chapter because I didn’t worry about what other people thought about me and shooting my shot.

Life is single player. You’ll learn confidence by getting out of your comfort zone.

Seek delayed gratification and reject cheap dopamine. Don’t indulge in mindlessly scrolling social media, playing the wrong sorts of games, egregious amounts of fast food and getting addicted to porn. Instead, focus on personal growth like fitness, learning new skills, setting your own personal goals, finding your own motivations to pursue those goals and chasing after them with a burning passion.

Social anxiety swallowed me up and spit me out as a kid - until I realised that no one really cares about you, which is a good and bad thing depending on the way you look at it. That being said, be the first to volunteer, to put your hand up for leadership opportunities, never let an opportunity pass by without real consideration, and send that cold message!

Honestly, conquering your fears over the simple things in life can carry the most meaning and satisfaction for you. I used to dab (yes, in 2023!), do Fortnite dances and pushups in the middle of the street or before going class and dap up teachers because I knew that it a) was harmless, b) washed myself with discomfort and embarrassment and c) showed that no one cares about you. Plus, it gave my mates a laugh, so I ask you this: Why not spread some positivity in the world?

Happiness is learned.

Perspective

Summary: Always keep in mind that you need hardship in order to appreciate the good things in life. Be thankful for hardship, shift your perspective on suffering and acknowledge it as something that help you grow.

Something else I find insanely interesting is the idea of perspective.

Once you endure something uncomfortable for an extended period of time, that discomfort becomes your new norm. On the other hand, when you experience something which is slightly better objectively, your perceived enjoyment will skyrocket.

Bit convoluted? Check out this analogy:

I went on a 20-ish kilometer coastal walk from Coogee to Watsons’ Bay with two good friends who were a year above me and had just finished the HSC. It was a pretty hot day (35 degrees Celsius); we walked that track for 5 hours with no food and just a few liters of water. On the way, we passed by a Coles, and bought an eight dollar Rotisserie chicken (on discount!), and decided to eat it once we got to Watsons’ Bay; with the sun slowly setting over the silhouette of Sydney and its harbour, on that first bite of food, one of my mates said it was the best chicken he had ever eaten and I’m pretty sure he was crying.

Though the food was objectively not amazing, after not eating for hours and doing a long and gruesome walk, his perception of it got him, a grown man, to shed a tear.

The founder of the grueling Barkley Marathon Gary Cantrell said "I think people are obsessed with comfort to the point that they forget if you don't have any discomfort in your life, how do you know when you feel good."

This is one of my favorite quotes - if I don’t go through hardship, struggle, pain, and tears, how the hell do I know that what I’ve earnt is actually valuable?

How can you experience comfort if it becomes the norm? You need some form of discomfort.

An interesting question - would you rather:

a) live a life which has an objectively lower material quality of living, say, living as a Buddhist monk (who are spiritually and emotionally much happier than all of us)

or

b) live idealistically with high ambitions, an objectively strong life financially, but ultimately falling short of your dreams, and feeling like a piece of shit?

It’s an interesting question - and I might be making some generalisations; life is also never one or the other (unless they are complements of each other… thank you 4U Maths).

But the question is - is it better to be financially healthy but spiritually unhealthy, or financially unhealthy and spiritually healthy? I leave this question to you; again, life is never one or the other.

Again, the great Naval said that “IMHO the three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order but their importance is in the reverse.”

I actually recently read Lawrence Yeo’s blog here. And one of his articles on “What Makes Death Bad?” answered this question really well.

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Let’s say that there was a highly intelligent adult who received a terrible brain injury, reducing his mental state to that of an infant. This man doesn’t feel any suffering because he’s in a contented state; he’s perfectly happy as long as he’s fed and his diaper is clean.

But no one would say that he is “in a better place now.” No, everyone would view this as a clear tragedy, a misfortune of epic proportions.

This is because the brain injury created two highly divergent storylines: one where the intelligent man continued to live his life and accomplish great things, and one where he has now become an oversized infant.

Being an infant itself is not bad, but the fact that this man’s mental state was reduced to that of an infant’s certainly is. Even though we see a contented man-baby in front of us, the reality is that he was deprived of all the hopes and possibilities that he had as an intelligent adult.

Failure is Learning

Summary: Failure is inevitable and is an awesome opportunity to learn and grow. However, we can’t dwell on our failure, and must continue to move forward.

Oh boy. This is going to be a hard section to write.

I believe in the importance of failure for learning.

At least, that’s what I say after I’ve failed countless times. It’s impossible to be a completely virtuous human with a crystal clear conscience. If you are, send me a message and let’s chat because I need some insight from you. Otherwise, if you’re human like the rest of us, chances are that you’ve felt like a piece of shit before (send me a message as well if you want to chat).

Some of my most significant failures included a pretty major lapse of judgement from my behalf when I was setting up for an assembly at school and wasn’t able to control myself, others include competitions known as Science Olympiads, alongside the occasional academic failure (looking at you, HSC Agriculture) and applications to various summer programs.

How did I cope with these failures? Truth is that I didn’t. I remember those most significant failures like they were yesterday, mostly because they ate me up and spat me out. They invaded my mind and never let go, no matter how hard I tried. It was only through time and genuine conversations with friends and family that I was able to forgive myself for trying my best and eventually failing.

There’s this idea of regret which I find insanely interesting; I explicate on it here.

Though I don’t align myself to a particular religion, I believe that there is some sort of supernatural force determining how the world operates, but ultimately the only thing you have control over is your own decisions and actions. I think everything happens for a reason, and you can wallow in sadness or move forward. Life is like a game of chess - once you make a bad move, you can continue to mess up or you can pick yourself back up again and move on. So nowadays, every time I come across a failure, I take a bit of time to feel sorry for myself, usually going to the gym or saying to myself that I “can’t change it” and that “it is what it is”. Then, I try to take it as a learning opportunity. What went wrong? How can I not make the same mistake again?

An extension of this idea is that sometimes, the world may decree that today, you are luckier than a fellow human. But it’s up to you to take advantage of that luck - otherwise, it is useless.

I’ll leave you with some insanely good quotes from Steve Jobs, from his 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech.

• “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something; your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference. ”

• “It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it.”

The Brevity of Life

Summary: Life is short. If you don’t look around, enjoy it, and make the most of every moment, it might pass you by. We can’t control death. We can control how we approach life in spite of it.

This has haunted me for a long time, as a young and naïve teenager. One day you and I will be on our deathbeds. What do I want to be thinking?

Simply put, one day I want the severity, and number of my personal regrets to be as little as possible. But how do I plan to go about doing this? In this very moment, I want to be doing the things that will make both my ten year-old self and my hundred year-old self proud, whether that be through taking opportunities in front of me or saying no at the appropriate times.

I write about this idea of regret here.

Also, I want to be spending my time efficiently. My dad once said that “the time you spend doing something is never wasted - unless it’s spent playing games”. I think that apart from your inherent intelligence at birth (which you can’t control), our differentiator is how hard we work and in what direction we work. The direction requires reading and guidance - something that you can seek from more experienced people through calls and conversations. Your most valuable assets are your time and attention.

As one of my good friends described it, “bro got me feeling like a vector”. I write about balancing spontaneity and planning here; work is truly like a vector.

That being said, a counterargument was brought up by another one of my friends, who says that “playing games is not a waste of time” and “it's a great way to relax… also strategy games.” Mind you, this guy is one of the smartest blokes I know, and he has his own opinions on gaming - again, try to look at it from your own lens and find what works best for you.

There’s an interesting idea about how individuals want time to pass quickly in the moment so that they can experience the future, but in a wave of nostalgia and reminiscing, they’d do anything to be back in the past. For me personally, these were the days in junior high school - with my mates, we made the most incredible memories, messing around in boring classes, playing pranks on teachers and living life with no care for the future; in the moment, I wanted it to be over, but now that I reflect, I’d love to go back.

I write about how to make the most of high school here.

I want to share some quotes with you, again from Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech (which was, come on, insanely good).

• “Because almost everything - all external motivations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.”

• “And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

The Butterfly Effect

Summary: So much in life is uncertain. The smallest, most insignificant decisions can result in drastically different pathways through life. See this for more on uncertainty.

I don’t know if you’ve ever watched the movie “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”. I find it absolutely insane how the smallest decisions can result in the most immense changes to the path of your life.

For example, I decided to reach out to one person in particular after reading a Reddit post in which he commented that if given another chance, he would pick to study computer science or finance instead of becoming a doctor. Mind you, this guy was 26, a fresh junior doctor in his second year after finishing medical school. I shot the guy a message, and throughout the past two years, we’ve exchanged messages over Reddit, Facebook and were finally able to meet each other in person a few months ago.

He gave me some pretty legitimate guidance - not only on careers to pursue, but his take on how to approach life, relationships, competition, formal education, and lifelong friendships. Much of the content you’ve read is my interpretation on what he’s discussed with me, and I think my life would be completely different, had I not decided to reach out to this person. It’s very much a mentor-mentee relationship :)

Now, two years after I decided to shoot that message over Reddit, I’m writing this blog and he’s finally building his first healthtech startup and finishing his Masters in Computer Science.

Finding certainty in uncertainty here.

Living in the Moment and Gratitude

Summary: Don’t spend too much time focusing on goals, or non-stop staying on the ‘grind’. Enjoy every moment, be grateful for what you have in the present.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like had I done one thing over the other, but then I realise - there’s no point living in fantasies of the past if all we have is the present and the future to look forward to. That being said, the future will never come either, so don’t worry too much about the uncertainties that pervade life.

If you think too much, you eventually forget how to live. You’ll forget to live - sometimes, as with digging deeper into your personal philosophy and exploring your perspective on life, ignorance truly is bliss. Your time and attention are your most valuable assets.

This doesn’t mean that you should ignore the past - scroll up to the section about “Failure is Learning” to read about this.

Check out this video from Shuzo Matsuoka which I think is awesome.

“Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

There’s a good reason why most philosophers are miserable and go insane towards the end of their lives – they notice and think deeply about issues in our world today, but they have no pragmatic means of creating change to these issues. Hence, they delve into despair, madness, and depression.

Never, ever forget to be grateful. Be grateful that you are alive in a time where information is so freely available. Be grateful that you are under a roof, with a full belly and comfortable clothes. Be grateful for your parents, your friends, and your teachers. But most importantly, be grateful for yourself.

When life gets too much, go outside. Look up. Listen to some music. Take a deep breath. Then recognise how you have so much potential and opportunities in front of you. Recognise them and seize the day.

A quote from the 2016 movie Passengers:

“You're not where you want to be. You feel like you're supposed to be somewhere else. Well, say you could snap your fingers and be wherever you wanted to be. I bet you'd still feel this way. Not in the right place. Point is, you can't get so hung up on where you'd rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are. Take a break from worrying what you can't control. Live a little.”

And from Naval (again… I know):

“What if this life is the paradise we were promised, and we're just squandering it?”

What if the grass was greener where you watered it? I write about this here.

Conclusion

So, that brings me to the end of my personal philosophy, which, I have no doubt, will be constantly reworked and republished. I truly belive that an individual’s personal philosophy is shaped by their own unique experiences. You just read about my thoughts on:

• Envy is the Enemy of Happiness

• Radical Open-Mindedness

• Finding Comfort Within Discomfort

• The Significance of Perspective

• Learning, Even Through Failure

• The Brevity of Life

• Small Decisions Can Result in Huge Changes

• Live in the Present and Be Grateful

I’m just a (newly) 17 year-old kid trying to make the most out of each day - this blog was something that I’ve been thinking of doing for a long time now, and I’ve finally decided to take action and create something that I can call entirely my own that I’m proud of.

If you vibe with what I write, shoot me a message and let’s chat :)

Yurui