The Hard Work of Happiness
We don’t talk enough about how hard happiness is.
Not the dopamine-flooded kind that comes with instant gratification. I’m talking about the kind of happiness that feels like peace. That creeps up on you after a long stretch of doing the work — sitting with yourself, making uncomfortable choices, setting boundaries, breaking patterns, showing up.
That kind of happiness? It takes time. And for many of us — especially LGBTQIA+ people — it takes unlearning years of messaging about who we should be, what we should want, and how we should show up in the world.
For a long time, I didn’t know what real happiness looked like. I confused it with excitement, with praise, with being invited, desired, or congratulated. And like many of us, I mistook the pursuit of happiness for happiness itself — swiping, scrolling, chasing, consuming, numbing.
But the further I go into sobriety, the more I realise how quiet the good life is. How simple. How much it relies on structure, sleep, community, and a quiet ego.
In a recent piece for The Atlantic, Arthur C. Brooks reflected on two deceptively simple daily questions:
“What is my purpose today?”
“What can be better around me, and how can I help bring it about?”
They’re gentle, but powerful. The first points us inward, asking us to define what truly matters today — not what gets us attention, not what pleases others. The second points us outward: a reminder that contribution, not consumption, is where the deepest joy lives.
It resonates deeply with my own shift from short-term highs to long-term purpose. There’s something profoundly satisfying in being of use. In serving. In helping others feel seen.
It’s not glamorous. But it’s grounding.
Another practice Brooks swears by is repeating this mantra: “I might be wrong.” And I’ve found that incredibly helpful. Queer life often teaches us to be defensive — to anticipate rejection, to prepare for judgment, to steel ourselves. But the willingness to be open, to soften, to listen… that’s where connection happens. And connection is where happiness is born.
We know this from research. Long-term studies from Harvard show that the biggest predictor of health and wellbeing isn’t wealth or status — it’s the quality of our relationships. And newer neuroscience confirms it: close friendships improve cognition, reduce anxiety, and even lengthen life expectancy.
That’s why, for me, building Get Out is so tightly wound into my own definition of happiness. It’s not just about creating community — it’s about staying well. About offering an antidote to the isolation, app fatigue, and comparison loops that are stealing our joy.
Happiness, it turns out, is less about “doing what you love” and more about “loving what you do often enough to get better at it.” Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called it flow: that feeling when we’re so engaged in something meaningful that time disappears. It’s not passive. It requires effort. And it often comes when we’re contributing to something beyond ourselves.
In contrast, the new Silicon Valley pitch is that happiness can be engineered by algorithms. That AI companions and curated feeds can replace the complexity of human relationships. But we know better. Studies repeatedly show that no chatbot can replicate the neural responses triggered by in-person eye contact, touch, or real-time conversation. Mirror neurons — the ones that allow us to feel empathy — don’t fire for machines. They fire for people.
So what actually helps?
A few habits backed by science and my own experience:
Movement. Especially shared movement—group classes, sports, walks with friends. Physical activity is medicine for the mind.
Reading. Especially fiction. It builds empathy, reduces loneliness, and gives your brain a mini holiday. One UK study found shared reading programs lowered isolation in older adults and improved mood.
Service. Volunteering, helping out, giving time. Research shows it increases life satisfaction and activates reward centres in the brain.
Self-awareness. Journaling, therapy, or even just the daily pause to ask: “How am I, really?” Without self-reflection, happiness can’t stick — it’ll always feel just out of reach.
We also need to rethink what happiness looks like. It’s not constant joy. It’s being able to sit with sadness and still know you’re okay. It’s walking away from something easy to choose something right. It’s a life full of purpose, not perfection.
If you’re still figuring out what that means for you, you’re not alone. I am too. But I know this much: it’s worth building. It’s worth protecting. And the path to it — while sometimes hard — is not one you have to walk alone.