Why the Pursuit of Happiness Will Never Bring you Happiness (Especially if You Have ADHD) & What We Can Do Instead
Our pursuit of happiness keeps us stuck in an endless cycle of suffering — and those of us with ADHD are uniquely vulnerable. Where do we go from here?
Long ago humans were faced with a dilemma: the vast, enticing world they yearned to explore was layered with unforgiving terrain; jagged mountain edges tore at their feet, blistering earth scorched every step, and snow-covered plains numbed their feet to the bone. Knowing that attempting to control their external environment — trying to smooth over every jagged edge, uproot every thorny branch or clear every snowfall — would have been a maddening and endless task, they discovered a much more effective solution: by securing simple materials to their feet, they created a barrier between themselves and the unforgiving ground, allowing them to move through the world with far greater ease and resilience.
The shoe was born.
The (Perpetual) Pursuit of Happiness
Unfortunately, our ancestors didn’t think to apply this same wisdom—protecting themselves rather than trying to reshape the world around them— to other aspects of the human experience like the pursuit of happiness. Most of us have been taught that when it comes to happiness, we need to smooth down those rocks: do everything in our power to make the world around us to our liking. Happiness is juuust around the corner as soon as we have:
The dream job
The perfect partner
The bigger house
The smaller body (or bigger body, depending on which gendered beauty standard you’re aiming for)
The promise of never being rejected
The love and adoration of everyone you ever meet (these last two are a shoutout to my ADHD friends in particular).
Question: how well is this going for you? Has this strategy brought you sustained peace and contentment or a perpetual loop of craving and anxiety?
If it’s the former, please message me and tell me your secrets because as far as I’m concerned…
The problem is, like all good lies, there’s just enough truth baked in. It does feel really good to get the thing. But then it’s gone as quickly as it came and the chase continues - like a mirage shimmering on a hot summer day. There are only so many times you can chase after something and “catch it” only to have it disappear and move just a little farther up the road, before you start to wonder if what you’re dealing with is an illusion.
So if the answer isn’t to smooth over every rock, to try to bend the world to our will, what would it look like to shield ourselves instead? Building off the ingenuity of our ancestors all those years ago, is there something we can metaphorically secure to ourselves to shield us from the outer world that would allow us to experience it as it is, thorns and all, and be okay regardless?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: equanimity.
The case for equanimity
The Buddhist concept of equanimity, as described by renowned Buddhist teacher Gil Fronsdal, is like a protective shield against the suffering that comes with the gusts of life's turbulence—blame, failure, pain, and disrepute (the sting of being disliked).
Sign me up, Gil.
It also guards against their opposites—praise, success, pleasure, and fame.
Wait, what?
Protection from success? From pleasure? Why would we want that?
In Buddhism, praise and blame, success and failure, pleasure and pain, and fame and disrepute are known as the “Eight Worldly Winds.” These are forces that blow us around, leaving us at their mercy if we aren't anchored by equanimity.
But what's so bad about being 'blown about' by success? you may wonder.
There’s nothing bad about success. It’s our attachment to success that causes suffering.
Why? Because success—like praise, pleasure, recognition, and everything else in the world—is impermanent. Tying our happiness to something so fleeting traps us in an exhausting loop of craving and clinging: either we don’t have it so we are craving it or we’ve got it and we are clinging for dear life, terrified it might slip away (which, spoiler alert: it will). The next time you find yourself craving one of the “good winds”, notice what it’s like. It’s actually quite uncomfortable. If you’re really still you can sense into what it feels like at its core: agitation. It is suffering dressed up in a nice outfit with some lipstick and a fresh blowout. At least according to the Buddha (okay, I might have added the part about the lipstick).
So, what’s our alternative? If attachment only brings us more suffering, what are we to do if not crave and cling to the good and run from the bad?
In one word? Non-attachment. True equanimity means not being attached to things being a certain way. Our friend Gil puts it simply: “one does not push aside the things one dislikes or grasp at the things one prefers. The mind rests in an attitude of balance and acceptance of things as they are.” He clarifies that equanimity isn’t indifference or apathy; it’s just non-preference—a state where we are neither resisting nor overly clinging, but instead, resting in calm acceptance.
Calm acceptance sounds pretty nice. But how do we do it?
Cultivating equanimity
Equanimity is not something you do. It emerges naturally when we practice non-attachment and non-reaction.
And how do we do this?
Mindfulness.
And how do we become mindful?
We meditate.
Blast! Every ADHDer’s least favourite word.
But hear me out. Victor Frankl, the Austrian psychologist and Holocaust survivor, once said:
"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
What Mr. Frankl is getting at is this: If we can slow ourselves down enough to be able to notice the space between stimuli (everything from an itchy nose to an urge to engage in a bad habit to a painful thought) and how we respond to it, we create the opportunity to respond from a place of wisdom rather than from emotional, automatic reactions.
And meditation helps us do this. As Sharon Salzberg famously said, “We don’t meditate to get good at meditation. We meditate to get good at life.”
The (extra) challenge for ADHD minds
All humans have their work cut out for them when it comes to this but for those of us with ADHD, we’ve got some extra challenges. In short, the "space" between stimulus and response is smaller for us, due to impairments in executive functioning, especially in the prefrontal cortex, which manages impulse control.
Me, learning this after having spent weeks (and weeks) of my life in silent meditation over the years trying (and failing) to gain control of my mind:
The good news is that non-reaction (and equanimity) can come with practice. In my next post, we’ll dive deeper into practical ways to develop equanimity, and how even those of us with ADHD can find our footing on the uneven terrain of life. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss out!
Or don’t.
I’m cool either way ;)