my dear son,
fFirst, a confession. I have spent most of my life chasing happiness like a man chasing a moving train, convinced that if I could run harder, think smarter, earn more, arrive sooner, I would finally board and sit down.
What no one tells you is that happiness is not running away from you. It stands still, waiting for you to stop moving to notice it. This is the first cruelty of being human. Simplicity that lies behind the mind emphasizes complexity.
It is very easy to be happy, but very difficult to be simple. I thought simplicity was for monks or fools or men who had already failed and dressed it up as wisdom. I thought complexity was evidence of seriousness. The busier the calendar, the more opinionated, the more ambitious, the more precious life is. I mistook weight for value. I carry things that were never meant to be carried. I defended positions that didn’t need to be defended. I filled every quiet space with sound because silence felt like judgment.
I now see that happiness was never complicated.
It didn’t require intelligence. It needed no explanation. It needs to be subtracted.
And the minus is awful.
Getting rid of things means admitting that you were wrong to collect them in the first place.
Save the world prize. More knowledge, more contacts, more possessions, more evidence. You will be encouraged to create a self that can be demonstrated, protected, measured. The danger is not that you will fail at it. The danger is that you will succeed and still feel restless, still haunted by a vague dissatisfaction you cannot name. That discontent is not ambition. It’s not hunger. It is the quiet voice of simplicity that begs to return.
I believed that happiness would always come later.
After the next milestone.
After the next win.
After the next version, the work itself is finished.
I lived as if the present was a hallway and real life was a room at the end of it. I have postponed luxuries like satisfaction that I have not yet achieved. It is a subtle form of violence. You break up your life before and after and never fully take over.
Happiness doesn’t come later, son.
It doesn’t declare itself.
It appears when you stop rehearsing for a future that may never come.
It appears in ordinary moments that the mind dismisses as trivial.
A quiet morning.
A shared meal.
A body that moves without pain.
A conversation that does not have to be impressive.
These moments are fragile. They cannot survive constant evaluation. The moment you ask if they are enough, they disappear.
To be simple is to resist the urge to comment on everything. To stop describing your life as if it were a performance. Allowing moments to exist without assigning meaning to them.
The mind is a fickle creature. It wants trouble. It wants the project. It wants reason. Simplicity offers none of this. It offers presence, which feels like emptiness to a mind trained in stimulation.
Most of our suffering is caused not by the pain itself but by the stories we attach to it. We complicate what hurts by insisting that it doesn’t have to happen. We replay it. We analyze it. We weaponize it against ourselves. Simplicity does not remove the pain, but minimizes its echo. It’s about letting pain be pain and not a referendum on your worth or future.
Don’t create a complicated identity. Don’t describe yourself with labels and tricks and long explanations. You will feel pressure to position yourself in everything. be careful The more complex the identity, the more fragile it is. It must be protected constantly. It cannot rest. A simple identity protection is not required. It fits. It breathes.
Being easy doesn’t mean being passive or naive. It does not mean shrinking. It means acting without exaggeration. Speaking without rhetoric. Want without disappointment. Love without bargaining. Simplicity is not the absence of depth. It’s depth without clutter.
Most of the things that tired me out weren’t necessary. They were elected. Chosen from fear of missing out, fear of being ignored, fear of not being important.
I said yes when I shouldn’t have said anything.
I carried expectations that were never asked of me.
I confuse obligation with intention.
Happiness returned quietly when I stopped discussing each emotion. When I let go of the need to optimize everything. When I allow some days to be indescribable. Unforgettable days have a dignity. It wants nothing from you but to survive.
Don’t complicate your happiness. You don’t need the right situation, the right partner, the right income, the right recognition. These things can make life easier. They couldn’t make it easier. And without simplicity, there is no place for happiness.
You will find that many people are unhappy not because their lives are difficult but because their minds are crowded.
They carry complaints like trophies.
They rehearse arguments that will never happen.
They measure themselves against people they know.
They live by comparison, which is the most complex form of self-betrayal.
Simplicity requires courage. It means depressed people. This means walking out of conversations that lead to anger. It means choosing a small life in a culture that worships scale. You will feel open without the armor of preoccupation and interpretation. Be open. That manifests honesty.
I’m not asking you to give up ambition or curiosity or growth. I ask you whether they serve your life or consume it. Growth that requires constant self-criticism is not growth. Ambition that cannot rest is not ambition. It concerns dressing well.
Life gets complicated despite your best efforts. Damage it will do. Responsibility will do this. Love will do that. Don’t confuse required complexity with chosen complexity. Part of being human. The other is optional suffering.
When things get heavy, go back to the simplest truths. Are you breathing? You are fed. Do you love at least one person who knows you as you are?
These are not trivial matters. They are basic. Everything else is decoration.
I don’t speak from the last place. I still catch myself for distraction instead of presence. I still overthink what it’s like to be alone.
Simplicity is not a destination but a daily refusal to add what is not included.
Happiness does not require effort. It demands honesty about what you really need. Be honest about what you’re afraid to let go of. Be honest about the ways you complicate your own life to avoid sitting quietly with yourself.
Choose to stop trying to improve every moment. When you allow a few moments to be empty. Emptiness is not failure. This is the place where peace finds you.
The happiest people you know are not the most impressive. They are the most relaxed. They are not in a hurry to prove their intelligence. They do not argue unnecessarily. They do not carry the weight of an imaginative viewer. They are simple without being small.
Son, you don’t need solutions to live your life well. You have to live it. If it gets too loud, turn it down. Question what you are carrying. Ask if it’s yours.
I love you without condition, without expectation, without explanation. That love is easy. It does not require maintenance. It exists whether you succeed or fail, whether you win or lose. Let that be your model. The most important things do not argue for their importance. They suffer in silence.
Be careful what you add to your day. Be ruthless about what you remove. Happiness will not reward you for complications. It will wait patiently for simplicity. And when you finally get there, it will feel less like winning and more like coming home.
father
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This post was Previously published at medium.com.
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Photo credit: Lorena Prida in Unsplash
