one of the most important things I learned at Yale

one of the most important things I learned at Yale what high achievers get wrong about happiness. I took one of Yale's most famous classes ever called Psychology and the Good Life. At the time, I thought this would be a gut, a fun, easy class where I just can show up and get credit. But over time, especially now that I'm a few years postgrad, I've come to realize how much that class really meant to me. One of the many things I learned in that class is a concept called hedonic adaptation. It's essentially the idea that humans tend to very quickly return to a stable level of happiness after both positive and negative life events. For example, you get a promotion, you're over the moon, but in a few months, we all know that you're going to start complaining about your job again. But on the flip side, if you go through a breakup and you feel devastated, in a few months, you'll be okay. What I took from that is a lot of the things our society tells us we need to be happy, like a higher paying job, more money in our bank account, another luxury bag or a home or a car, no matter how much of this stuff you have, there will always be someone with a little bit more than you. And because of hedonic adaptation, so many of us find ourselves on this hamster wheel chasing the next best thing, thinking that's what's going to make us happy. But a superpower that overachievers like myself can have is the ability to find happiness in the present. The good news is, in general, the things that actually make us happy are free. Exercise, good sleep, social connection, practicing kindness, reaching flow state at work and in your hobbies, leaning into your strengths, practicing time affluence, adopting a growth mindset. I'm so eternally grateful that I took that class and internalized that information. It's something that I want to constantly work towards and spread to people around me.