Pursuit of Happiness for Chinese Millennial and Beyond

Ever regret quitting a stable and yet extremely boring and joyless job? Would one had more enlightened working and living experiences by taking the plunge in pursuit of a more challenging and meaningful jobs? Or can one remains thriving continue to endure and doubting the meaning of life hanging on to the intolerable job where the only highlights are lunch and tea break with colleagues and the highly addictive monthly payroll and benefits?

This article attempts to provide an overview of these phenomena specifically in China and to a larger extents to the rest of the new economic regions and propose some rethinking and alternative perspectives. One key aspect is the inevitable craving of dopamine continue to drive you and me, followed by the typical definition of happiness and lastly on the Maslow hierarchy law of needs. Still the same old elements but updated taking consideration into the latest developments in ever increasing life-span, destructive and yet indispensable technology advancement and the far reaching influence of social media.

Change Seeking to keep a careful balance between happiness and stability is probably what kept many of us motivated, its an on-going dynamic momentum. In fact, studies have shown that dopamine neurons in the brain are activated by the looking forward of favorable outcomes derive from efforts and actions and the end results actually didn’t carry as much weight as anticipation itself. Not unlike the classical Pavlov’s dog theory and gambling addiction in an influential model suggested that the dopamine signals the difference between predicted and experienced reward. It’s the baseline that’s provides the necessary change for fulfillment and engagement. hunger getting fed, needs being fulfilled, prayers getting answered, high quality rest from exhaustion. Comfort can be secured from steadiness and only through change one gains happiness with the magical help of dopamine.

As Daddy said, life is 95 percent anticipation.

Gloria Swanson

Therefore an increasingly emphasis on stability hinders efforts of achieving meaningful state of life satisfaction and general contentment, though it can also be viewed as an inevitable paradox of modern day living as everyone had to go through the rite of passage and an incessant striving for excellence in our quest of better livings are always in motion. But such reserved approach are usually far outweighed by mental degradation costs ranging from low self-esteem to overall life dissatisfaction.

Happiness Although older peers could dispense and share the wisdom of the pursuit of happiness but that did not necessarily translate into the favorable adoption by the younger one due to inherent built-in egoism and contempt; Unsolicited advices often fall on deaf ears and one still needs to compete for the attention with a range of sophisticated social media platforms and its almost next to impossible to dismiss prevailing ideas that financial assurance shouldn’t triumph all other aspect of life in family, community, physical health and higher purposes.

Advice is a form of nostalgia: dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth. 

— Baz Luhrmann

Experts say the society tends to blame changing life inspiration patterns as the key reason for resentments, but that this severely misses the point. Ignoring fundamental human nature of pursuit of happiness plays a big part; gratitude, community, culture, identity, compassion, acceptance and higher purposes. Its so straightforward and yet so difficult to achieve when one stubbornly defines success which inevitably associated with happiness solely on “GDP”. Likewise on the drastic fall of fertility rate faced by many developing countries, its the value system and higher calling that’s play a critical role not disproportionally on economic terms.

For example, Malay ethnicity who are known to be religious and had strong community bonding in Singapore had double the birth rate as compare to their peers in 2021;  In China, the Han, makes up over 92% of vast population which are the same Chinese race as in Singapore despite having different nationality, political and education system had more or less evolved more geared toward economical beings where everything are measured financially. In other words, Happiness is subject to debate on usage and meaning and on possible differences in understanding by culture.

Hierarchy Law of Needs In China, soaring living expense have triggered a sharp plunges in confidence of the younger generations, many choose ending a spectacular pursuit of financial wealth that led to one of the world most expensive property market as most fail to visualize achieving the same financial prosperity as their earlier generation despite doubling the efforts and having accomplished much more in academic qualification and career advancement. Naturally the law of diminishing returns had been established and many had begun to appreciate this and seek higher inspirations along the Maslow law of needs.

Merely focusing on stability and security will also have an impact on mental health, low self-esteem if one not moving up to the next level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs soon enough. As haggling over having stable job with steady income would be considered unseemly, one needs to able to develop built-in resilient for individual maximum satisfaction in values, goals, and strategy such as personal health, family and community engagement even when one isn’t contributing in the maximum level in business or in an organization.

“Do not look for happiness outside yourself. The awakened seek happiness inside.”

― Peter Deunov

Summary The proliferation of quiet quitting has sparked unprecedented momentum of labor movement in China and the rest of the world, fueled by social media and the priority preference of the younger generations in search of meaningful jobs that can make an impact on social matters with strong sense of purposes, feeling they’re creating value and doing good. Extended remote working arrangements had opened the eyes and minds for an alternative working lifestyle and the pursuit of happiness by Millennial are no different from the earlier generation and the definition kept evolving as the global race for talent has been spurred by the distortions to national economies caused by the pandemic and with new digital native generation entering workforce with different set of priorities and expectation, having matching their aspirations would had given any organization an edge. The key element of “Change” had to be carefully embedded to take advantage of the dopamine.

The changing dynamic of economic landscape had also provided an alternative definition of happiness and opening doors to move along the hierarchy law of needs and the Millennial and beyond are probably in their best ever shape to embrace the future despite the current gloom and doom outlook prospects, we always manage to pull through as the past evidences had demonstrated again and again, in fact, being alive and kicking is already beating the astronomical odds and we should be grateful and celebrate and live a little from time to time.

“Life Finds a Way”

Dr. Ian Malcolm 

Don’t Believe Everything Your Brain Are Telling You

We are exacerbating, not mitigating, our exposure to existential threats listening and believing too much to what our brain are telling us, as many were dangerous and unproductive, they are simply parts of the unwanted by-products of our minds addressing the sense of anxieties, paranoid and worries serving faithfully as a defense mechanism for higher chance of staying alive as an individual and part of the tribal group in the wilderness looking out for dangers in the hunter gather era and simply by recognizing and identifying them accordingly could entail the most dramatic shift in mindset since our cave man and women ancestors began more than 10,000 years ago, as the traits serve us well fighting for survivals continue to run in our bloods in the modern setting and causing unintended consequences.

As a matter of fact, the related prolong and extended anxieties when not managed properly could had led to failures in sensible mental and physical self-regulation; deteriorating our health and contract our blood vessels, having muscle spasms along with elevated heart rates would degrade our organs over time causing skin diseases, stomach ulcers, cardiac irregularities, shortness of breath, insomnia, joins pains and many more and inevitably led to unhappiness and low quality of life satisfactions not to mention illness with grave consequences and all these could had been avoided with a better understanding of ourselves in the first place. First thing first, we need to have a better comprehension on how and why our mind behave in they way they had and what could be done to stay on top of the game.

My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.

Michel de Montaigne

Anxiety is the mental state for us to counter multiple kind of stressors in our daily lives, however many of the stressors we experience are irrelevant as a well-known study had examined; 40% of worries on past matters, 30% on future potential issues, 4% on situations we really cant do much about it and that’s only left with 4% on things that really matters which are taking place in the present. Even that most of the things wander into our mind during our waking hours never actually happen, and yet our minds continue to worry, tensing our muscle with flaring nose on elevated heart rates entering a state of alertness with increase intake of oxygen and adrenaline release to fight or flight and these incessant mind shifts resulted from natural changes in our mind and despite the significant discovery in understanding them it remains a mystified organ dictating many of mankind destiny. But one thing for sure, we had been tricked by ourselves, we ought to practice to put things in perspective knowing now all these are just how our brain operate in overdrive mode and we can very well address them in a scientific and meaningful manners.

The Internet is a big distraction.

Ray Bradbury

Distraction management is the key to stay enlightened and engaged. Proper handling of the incessant unwanted and wondering thoughts needs practices and awareness; These less eye-catching and attention-grabbing worries that truly provide the underlying infrastructure for the shift to healthier and pragmatic mindsets are the true beneficiaries of embracing the actual facts. Me and you are all having the same troubles striving to stay relevant and useful putting these inevitable and yet disturbing thoughts in perspective since its part of what we are and these distraction cant effectively be stopped. As toxic subconscious thoughts hinder mindfulness, and they behave like yeast and got fermented and multiplied without meaningful intervention. We are always suffering from distraction, either with low self-esteem, biased perception and belief, negative and self-blaming which could led to mental illness like depression, compulsive disorder and so on.

Grief shared is half grief; Joy shared is double joy.” Honduran Wisdom

Honduran Wisdom

In fact, social medias prey on these built-in insecurities and anxieties to drive their  annual sales revenues by keeping us entangled helplessly with these digital distractions. Therefore the present and future will be determined not only by the new perspective as it responds to the daily challenges lives throw at us but also by a tug-of-war between priorities, faith, and values all gunning for their preferred approaches as the only way to salvation.

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Focus Mode. Instead of remaining in the default mode where ordinary individuals stay in between 50% to 80% of the time with predisposed and wondering minds, we could had trained our thoughts to focus more with meaningful matters with the help of higher power, strong sense of purposes and gratitude, medication and even regular physical exercises to take the loads off the overthinking minds with built-in inevitable preference for negative confirmation and lost aversion biases, high alertness on sign of dangers and constantly looking out for foods and sustenance mostly for the fundamental level of Maslow hierarchy law of needs on safety and securities. We can consciously shift beyond this knowing that we are already in good hands in modern infrastructure with respectable law and order in placed as one way to led fulfilling, rewarding and meaningful lives.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a scalable vector illustration on white background

In summary, the pitfalls for the ways our minds operate that underpins people’s daily lives, such as a range of biases, jealousy, prejudice and lack of purpose, is widening. The proliferation of emotional social media weren’t the root-causes despite they brought out the worse within everyone of us as these are exactly what we are to begin with. It’s less about brute strength than finding creative ways to maneuvers our brains into a strategic position; always plan in excess and be abundantly prepared physically, financially and mentally avoiding letting our vulnerable and reasonably primitive and predicable mind calling the shots so that the constant push and pull on our mind could be more of a nuisance than a threat to our desired life styles.  Whether these will fuel a productivity and mental well-being boost one day are almost very much guaranteed as it had been proven over and over again by so many others over our mankind history

“Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.”

― Mary Schmich

The Myth of Financial Freedom in Chinese Context

Many of our financial decisions are rooted in cognitive biases, a mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses”. It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and process mostly disproportionately established throughout early stage of childhood development where values and perceptions were formed, many of which subsequently become unconscious automatic responses well into the adulthood. For example, there are varying degrees of interpretations on financial freedom probably as wide as the demographic profiles itself on gender, nationality, cultural background, social status, and age groups. Everyone needs to identify which plan to take and stay on course to strive for them to have the slightest chance of materializing it as life are full of surprises and it usually didn’t go according to what we wanted.

Therefore, having closer examination on what are some of the myths surrounding this highly sensitive and emotive issues could had had the effects of forcing many of us to overcome the tendencies to keep overestimating our capability to achieve this illusive financial freedom status and at least had the opportunities to identify alternative concepts that might not have been discussed early enough; what should be the relevant definition of financial freedom in relation to pragmatic and sensible living within one means.

“Financial freedom is mental, emotional, and education process.”– Robert Kiyosaki

Finite Nature of Time and Energy Few facts remain which are agreed upon by most; Money can typically be earned with our time and energy of which different rate applies and it’s fact of life the earlier we embrace the better off we will be. The rate could be as wide a range as beyond one’s imagination and its better to keep a larger portfolio of options until very late in the process as in many major life events, do it as a choice rather than being compelled would be the deciding factor whether one can maximize his or her potential of life satisfaction. In other words, some could be earning ten times more or could had a wealthy spouse but as long as one fulfils the fundamental Maslow law of hierarchy needs, no one should be deprived of achieving happiness; strong and healthy social capital not merely on financial terms but including much meaningful factors like health, bonding, caring and network of resources and so on.

“I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that its not the answer.” – Jim Carrey.

Although money could had been kept and even being grown for more returns through investments and so on, but the same doesn’t apply to time and energy for mortals like you and me, one can of course use them to exchange more money or better still to use them on other areas of interests as we will run out of the time and energy eventually, some earlier and more miserable than the others.

“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.”- Gautam Buddha

Inherent Nature of Craving and Insecurity Aiming for financial freedom usually is reflection of overconfidence and excessive optimism that people have in the accuracy of their predictions which peak in their 20s and deteriorate along in their prime and productive years as majority of working adults will fall short of the golden recipes of the 4% rules with intentions of regular stream of cashflow for 30 years or so upon retirement where we stubbornly insist on having the same lifestyle, a reflection of the status quo bias, the attempt to maintain the status quo, disregarding the changing business environment and confused with the heavily commercially manipulated terms of financial freedom and meaning of actual living reflecting from our own and our parent experiences with overrated ability to learn from them.

Our built-in nature of insecurity and craving are being leveraged commercially as if the only key performance index is the GDP, as the crucial concept of financial freedom has everything to do with one’s choice of life-style; one can actually live without much materials longings and pursuit like what the great pandemic had taught many of the blessed “Working From Home” workers who experienced the alternative working arrangements without the costly commuting, lunch out and work related expenses. With minimalist living and adjusted expectation, financial freedom is within one realm of reality for majority of Asian who already had enough for basic, respectable, and decent livings. Therefore the key to any forms of freedom is craving and lifestyle management.

“You cannot simultaneously retain your cake and eat it”.– Unknown

Unlocking the Time We abandon many risky financial decisions that we should pursue with long term gains when time is on our side but don’t, a reflection of risk aversion, another common bias until the options is out of our hands. Likewise, most of us had self-limited ourselves from establishing a family or having more children than heart desires as we overemphasize and overcalculate too much on the perceptive and seemingly exorbitant long term financial and resources obligation, overlooking certain aspects in life should be evaluated with non-monetary terms like faith, mission, meanings, and purposes as they are also part of the overall wealth and social capitals. It usually doesn’t take too much for a no-frill fundamental way of living a life as there are always choices available; budget, economics, business or first class; its the essence of time that we need to take control of for our own sake. As in regardless of the type of tickets or lifestyles we choose, the flight time and destination remains the same for everyone.

Having understood now the pursuit of financial freedom is indeed as elusive as the utopia itself and having unlocking the “time” and “energy” should not be an entitlement exclusively for the retirees if by choice. Now the next big question is what are you going to do with these freed up time as Money should always be regarded as a means and not as an end and its simply didn’t make logical senses to spend them all on making money in the face of the inevitable sense of insecurities and uncertainties.

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”  — Steve Job

In summary, though these are socially accepted norms, being financial free is mostly associated with commercial advertisements for financial products leveraging on our incessant insecurities and anxieties and inherent craving for prosperity and happiness.  Not unlike pledging of everlasting utopia and land of milks and honey to our insatiable and constantly paranoia hunter gatherer counterparts 2 million years ago as its part of the built-in inclination for survival traits still rein in modern mankind among us.

The earlier we are well aware of the keys to good decisions the sooner we could had made better choices; in other words, lies not in the brilliance of the decision-makers or individual hunches and preferences, but in the design of the decision-making process aligning with the corresponding values and inspirations; By adjusting to minimalist lifestyle with simple and no frill materialistic cravings and actively keep and engage a close circle of friends of like-minded values and cultures with regular fellowship and sharing would put one in good hands in terms of satisfactory and enjoyable livings with the precious time and energy we unlock ourselves with a change in perspective and we can be truly free financially, emotionally, mentally and physically.