“ How to Build a Life ” is a biweekly column by Arthur Brooks, tackling questions of mean and happiness. Imagine reading a history titled “ The Relentless Pursuit of Booze. ” You would likely expect a depress narrative about a person in a down alcoholic spiral. now think rather reading a story titled “ The Relentless Pursuit of Success. ” That would be an inspire narrative, wouldn ’ t it ? Maybe—but possibly not. It might well be the history of person whose ceaseless quest for more and more success leaves them perpetually unsated and incapable of happiness. physical colony keeps alcoholics committed to their vice, even as it wrecks their happiness. But arguably more mighty than the physical addiction is the sense that drink in is a relationship, not an activeness. As the writer Caroline Knapp described dipsomania in her memoir drink : A Love Story, “ It happened this room : I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out. ” Many alcoholics know that they would be happier if they quit, but that international relations and security network ’ t the steer. The decision to keep drink is to choose that intense love—twisted and alone as it is—over the platitude of bare happiness.

Though it isn ’ t a conventional medical addiction, for many people achiever has addictive properties. To a certain extent, I mean that literally—praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is implicated in all addictive behaviors. ( This is basically how social media keeps people hooked : Users get a dopamine reach from the “ likes ” generated by a post, keeping them coming back again and again, hour after miserable hour. ) But success besides resembles addiction in its effect on homo relationships. People sacrifice their links with others for their true love, success. They travel for business on anniversaries ; they miss Little League games and recitals while working long hours. Some waive marriage for their careers—earning the appellation of being “ married to their work ” —even though a good kinship is more satisfy than any caper. Read : Workism is making Americans miserable many scholars, such as the psychologist Barbara Killinger, have shown that people willingly sacrifice their own wellbeing through overwork to keep getting hits of success. I know a thing or two about this : As I once found myself confessing to a conclude supporter, “ I would prefer to be especial than happy. ” He asked why. “ Anyone can do the things it takes to be happy—going on vacation with family, relaxing with friends … but not everyone can accomplish great things. ” My supporter scoffed at this, but I started asking other people in my circles and found that I wasn ’ triiodothyronine strange. many of them had made the success addict ’ mho choice of peculiarity over happiness. They ( and sometimes I ) would put off ordinary delights of liberalization and clock with love ones until after this project, or that promotion, when ultimately it would be time to rest. But, of course, that day never seemed to arrive. The desire for achiever may be built-in to human nature. The great american english psychologist William James once noted, “ We are not alone gregarious animals, liking to be in view of our fellows, but we have an congenital aptness to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind. ” And success makes us attractive to others ( that is, until we ruin our marriages ). But peculiarity doesn ’ t come brassy. Apart from some reality-TV stars and early accidental celebrities, success is barbarous work, and it requires sacrifices. In the 1980s, the doctor Robert Goldman famously found that more than half of aspiring athletes would be will to take a drug that would kill them in five years in exchange for winning every competition they entered today, “ from the Olympic decathlon to the Mr. Universe. ” Later research found that up to 14 percentage of elite performers would accept a black cardiovascular discipline in exchange for an Olympic gold medal—still a shockingly high number, in my estimate. We can find this choice in ancient myth, arsenic well. In Homer ’ sulfur Iliad, Achilles must decide whether to fight in the Trojan War—promising certain physical death but a glorious legacy—or return to his home to live a long and happy liveliness with his love ones but die in obscurity. He describes his choice thus :

That two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out hera and I lay siege to Troy, my travel home is gone, but my glory never dies.

If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies …

Achilles, success addict par excellence, chooses end. unfortunately, success is Sisyphean ( to mix my Greek myth ). The goal can ’ t be satisfied ; most people never feel “ successful enough. ” The high alone lasts a day or two, and then it ’ south on to the future goal. Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill, in which satisfaction wears off about immediately and we must run on to the next reward to avoid the palpate of falling behind. This is why so many studies show that successful people are about constantly jealous of people who are more successful. Read : Kids don ’ t need to stay “ on track ” to succeed They should get off the treadmill. But quitting international relations and security network ’ metric ton slowly for addicts. For people hooked on substances, withdrawal can be an agonize have, both physically and psychologically. anxiety and depression are identical common after one quits alcoholic drinking, for exemplar. indeed, the novelist William Styron excellently cited the cessation of his lifelong clayey drink in as share of the attack of the clinical depression he chronicled in his book Darkness Visible : A Memoir of Madness. Some chalk this up to loneliness in the absence of alcohol—remember, it ’ s a relationship. Success addicts giving up their habit experience a kind of coitus interruptus as well. Research finds that depressive disorder and anxiety are common among elect athletes after their careers end ; Olympic athletes, in particular, suffer from the “ post-Olympic blues. ” I saw this withdrawal all the time in my years as the president of a remember cooler in Washington, D.C. big people in politics and media would step back from the limelight—sometimes of their own volition, sometimes not—and suffer mightily. They talked of about nothing but the previous days. many suffered from depression and anxiety. “ Unhappy is he who depends on achiever to be happy, ” wrote Alex Dias Ribeiro, a erstwhile Formula 1 race-car driver. “ For such a person, the end of a successful career is the conclusion of the line. His fortune is to die of bitterness or to search for more achiever in other careers and to go on living from success to achiever until he falls dead. In this case, there will not be liveliness after achiever. ” american english acculturation valorizes overwork, which makes it easy to slip into a mentality that can breed success addiction. But if you ’ ve seen yourself in my description, don ’ thymine lose hope. There is plenty you can do to retrain yourself to chase happiness rather of success, no matter where you are in your life ’ second travel. Let me suggest that you consider three steps, whether you are at the point of your career, trying to work your direction up the ladder, or looking at success in the rearview mirror. The beginning step is an entrance fee that equally successful as you are, were, or hope to be in your life and work, you are not going to find dependable happiness on the hedonic treadmill of your professional biography. You ’ ll find it in things that are deeply ordinary : enjoying a walk or a conversation with a loved one, alternatively of working that extra hour, for exemplar. This is highly difficult for many people. It feels about like an admission of frustration for those who have spent their lives worshipping intemperate study and striving to outperform others. Social comparison is a big part of how people measure blase success, but the inquiry is clear that it strips us of life gratification. The irregular step is to make amends for any relationships you ’ ve compromised in the diagnose of success. This is complicated, obviously. “ Sorry about choosing boring board meetings—which I don ’ thyroxine even remember now—over your ballet recitals ” credibly won ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate get the job done. More effective is simply to start showing up. With relationships, actions speak louder than words, particularly if your words have been fairly empty in the past.

The last step is to find the right metrics of success. In commercial enterprise, people much say, “ You are what you measure. ” If you measure yourself only by the worldly rewards of money, ability, and prestige, you ’ ll spend your biography running on the hedonic treadmill and comparing yourself to others. I suggested better metrics in the inauguration “ How to Build a Life ” column, among them faith, family, and friendship. I besides included work—but not exercise for the sake of outbound accomplishment. quite, it should be sour that serves others and gives you a sense of personal mean. success in and of itself is not a bad thing, any more than wine is a bad thing. Both can bring fun and sweetness to life sentence. But both become oppressive when they are a substitute for—instead of a complement to—the relationships and love that should be at the center of our lives .