5 Happiness Traps—and How to Break Free of Them
Soul Gum
by Victoria Hutchins
4.9 • 561 Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We all want to be happy—but so many of the ways we chase happiness actually leave us more disconnected, burnt out, or empty than before. In this episode, we’ll walk through five of the most common happiness traps: the things we do to feel better that often make us feel worse. Along the way, we’ll explore what Nietzsche, Marx, and modern Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek have to say about the pursuit of joy. Then, we’ll turn to one of the longest-running studies on happiness to ask the big question: when it comes to feeling good, what actually works?
No one has the secret to happiness. But a lot of smart people have said a lot of smart things that might help you feel better and access a little more joy. Let’s talk about it.
EPISODE OUTLINE
00:00 Intro
01:18 Break
03:22 5 happiness traps
03:27 1. Overconsumption
06:00 Overconsumption starts with scarcity programming
07:11 Nietzsche & overconsumption as a way to fill the void
10:37 2. Chasing achievements
11:46 Slavoj Zizek and the duty to enjoy the grind
13:26“Don’t be ridiculous, Andrea. Everyone wants this.”
14:18 Superego injunction: “a million girls would kill to have this job”
15:22 On using a lack of happiness as fuel to grind
15:56 3. Comparison
18:11 Downward social comparison
22:12 4. Self- and symptom-focused spiritual practices
22:55 Marx on how economic systems shape values
23:28 Self-centered spirituality in the West
24:41 Spirituality as a bandaid vs a root cause solution (Zizek)
25:45 5. Isolation
27:03 The hyperindividualism crisis
28:00 We owe each other stuff
28:17 We want things from each other, and we should
28:23 Harlow’s monkey study on attachment
30:13 We’re living in our own worlds
31:28 So what DOES work?
31:57 Harvard happiness study
35:13 Challenge
36:19 Lightning round recap
MY LINKS
• MAKE BELIEVE is out everywhere now
• Get a signed copy of MAKE BELIEVE from Blue Willow Bookshop
• Join me in Bali June 1-7!
• Find me @thedailyvictorian on Instagram
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Lots of the ways we chase happiness actually make us sadder. Let's talk about it. |
| 0:07.8 | Welcome back to Soulgum, the self-development podcast with philosophical, psychological, and literary |
| 0:14.7 | flair. I'm your host, Victoria Hutchins. My goal is to give your soul something to chew on and today we are diving into the |
| 0:24.6 | paradox of happiness. |
| 0:26.6 | One of the most frustrating feelings in the world is the feeling of I'm trying so hard and |
| 0:33.6 | it's still not working. |
| 0:35.6 | It's the feeling of I just want to feel good. I spend all this money, |
| 0:39.2 | I jump through all these hoops, I do all the things that everyone says works for them and I'm still so |
| 0:45.1 | sad. Why is it that when we try to chase happiness, often we end up emptier, more disconnected, |
| 0:53.8 | more burnt out, and sadder than how we started. |
| 0:57.0 | So today I want to talk about that. I'm going to walk through five happiness traps, things we do to |
| 1:03.4 | chase happiness that actually often make us more miserable, and what one of the longest running |
| 1:09.2 | studies on happiness says we should do instead. |
| 1:12.6 | And of course, because this is Soulgum, we will weave in some philosophy along the way. |
| 1:18.1 | But first, this episode of Soulgum is brought to you by me. |
| 1:22.3 | This is not sponsored. |
| 1:23.8 | If you're new to Soulgum, hi, I'm Victoria. |
| 1:26.5 | It's so nice to meet you. I'm so glad you're here. If you're |
| 1:30.8 | not new to Soul Gum, then you know that I'm choosing to keep this season of Soul Gum ad free all |
| 1:35.8 | season long, which means I'm not inserting any of those annoying AutoPlay ads at the start of any |
| 1:40.5 | episode all season. And instead, I am taking a few moments of your time to tell you about |
| 1:45.3 | some things that I have to offer. I'll keep it really quick today. Two quick things. Number one, |
... |
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