As usual, @naval delivers his trademark bite-sized tweets of wisdom. His recent podcast and tweet was about the relationship between happiness and efficiency.

Being unhappy is very inefficient.

Tl;dr - basically, because unhappiness doesn’t lend good judgement and decision-making. Or the universe works fast when I’m happy and healthy.

We often hear about happiness being the end in itself. Be happy! Why? Just because. Who doesn’t like being happy? It feels good. But we don’t often hear that happiness can be very productive too. And opposite is true - unhappy people have poorer judgement and decision-making:

You’re much more likely to react with anger… Your decisions are emotional and impetuous. I make decisions much more clearly now, because…I cut straight to the chase and don’t try and negotiate an extra 20% here or there—because I know that’s going to make me unhappy in the long-term, make the other person unhappy, and make the deal less stable.

I love this comparison. Yes, happiness is a noble end in itself. That’s commendable. Applaudable. But for the productivity-obsessed like me, knowing that happiness also brings efficiency is a great draw. Because who doesn’t want to do great work, and also be happy at the same time? That’s like the holy grail of work for me. 

And like I mentioned in my previous post, if I tie my happiness to reaching a goal, then I won’t be very happy in the process. That’s not what I want. And that’s not how I can be work efficiently towards my goal. Unhappiness as a route to success probably will be a path littered with landmines, detours and delays – if you can even reach there in the first place without burning out.

So, reminder to self: 

I’m happy because I can work, and I work well because I am happy.