Our Souls Need Proof of Work

Dopamine is less about experiencing pleasure and more about driving us to seek future rewards. It's the thrill of anticipation rather than satisfaction itself.

Work hard for yourself, for the joy you feel when you’re one step closer to the person you’ve always wanted to be, whether it’s getting in the dirt to make things grow, getting in front of a crowd to speak your truth, or going out to find love behind all those brambles.

Paradoxically, doing hard things makes us happier. Putting ourselves through struggle makes us better equipped to enjoy life.

This is the hidden trap of comfort: the easier and quicker our desires are fulfilled, the more our brains recalibrate. Getting what we want, without struggle or delay, numbs our ability to experience real joy and satisfaction.

Wanting has a mascot, and its name is dopamine—those tiny carriers of motivational signals zipping around our brains.

When dopamine first captured scientific attention, it was dubbed the chemical of pleasure. We believed that more dopamine equaled more happiness, but that’s only partly true. Dopamine is less about experiencing pleasure and more abou... See more

But I noticed something else: there was long-term satisfaction to be found in my journey. It wasn’t in the attaining but in the becoming .

Yet each subsequent reward tends to deliver a slightly weaker dopamine spike—a phenomenon economists call diminishing marginal utility, explaining why the tenth bite never tastes as delicious as the first.

But dopamine has another, darker trick up its sleeve. Repeated dopamine surges alters the brain's wiring, reducing sensitivity to natural rewards... See more