When you have everything in life, but there is no joy

AVAlexander Volchek

It allows you to stop deceiving yourself. It allows you to perceive cause and effect as they really are. It allows you to stop being mistaken about the true source of joy. I often hear people say, "Everything is good in my life, but I don't feel any joy." They emphasize that good things are happening in their life. Everything seems great with their job and their business. Money seems fine, as do their family, their health, the people around them, and what they do. Yet inside, they feel terrible. Of course, this comes up for people who reflect on themselves and want to find a real answer to what is happening. There really is a state of anxiety with no apparent cause: you feel pain in your chest, a kind of trembling, and you become intensely uncomfortable. You start wondering what it is, what is causing it, but you cannot find a cause at all. It is as if no cause exists. There is none. You try to find it, and it isn't there. You feel uncomfortable. That is a different state, but it lets you make a comparison with this situation where everything is good, yet somehow joy never comes. If we look at society and the people around us, an enormous number of people convey this endless race to make everything around them good.

And they say, "Everything is good in my life. Right now, it is very important to get this race going so that everything in my life will be good." In doing so, they show that all those good things around you are not directly proportional to, or directly connected with, your own state: how you feel, the state you are in. Interestingly, when people are in this state, they start looking for problems. Where is the problem? They start looking for it. Maybe the problem really is in my relationship. I am shutting something out and failing to see it. Maybe the problem is with my children. I just don't feel it; I have blocked it out. People start digging around in all this, looking for a problem inside it. Maybe there is a problem at work, or a problem in the business. I am just not paying attention to it. An enormous number of approaches are built on this: they tell you there is a problem. But that is a big question. Do you really need to look for a problem in what is happening? Do you really need to rush off and change jobs, close a business, or start a business? You need to understand the cause: why are you in this state? I remember people coming to me and asking, "Should I stay in this business or close it? Stay in the business or close it?" You realize that whatever answer you give them, whatever answer you give, it will not change how they feel.

They are not looking for a solution for the business. They are looking for a solution for themselves, not for the business. But when you are looking for a solution for yourself rather than for the business, you should at least understand objectively that you are about to help yourself or make a mistake for yourself, while what will happen to the business or your job is anyone's guess. I had this experience in 2015, when I was leaving a partnership. I owned a business, and I left it. First I stepped away from management. When I did that, an acquaintance told me, "You did the right thing for yourself, but not for the business. It is probably not bad for you, but it is unlikely to be good for the business." When you make these decisions, you need to understand very clearly what will actually happen, and who will benefit or suffer where. That brings another story to mind. I recently went to Paris and spent three weeks there. Of course, when you go and live in Paris for three weeks, you have left home. At home, I have four children, a wife, various businesses, lots of things to be involved in, responsibilities, work: all sorts of things. Then you go to Paris and follow entirely your own schedule.

You are focused on yourself. You don't have to keep track of how your dog is eating. You are outside the family's daily routine, not immersed in the things happening at home. You don't have to tend the garden or resolve a huge variety of issues. You are in a completely different setting. And you are in Paris. For many people, being in Paris is wonderful: you have gone somewhere; you are probably sightseeing, relaxing, going to good restaurants, seeing beautiful people. For some, it is the beautiful buildings and architecture; for others, fashion. You are somewhere new. Pretty cool. You have gone to live in Paris for three weeks. My sister flew over to visit me there for a few days. I told her, "An enormous number of people see this as a positive. But you can also see it as something other than a positive, look at it completely differently, and say that I am far away from my children. I don't see them every morning and every evening. I am somewhere where I sleep alone in bed, without my wife. I am sleeping in a bed and sheets I am not used to, in a hotel room that also contains my suitcase, my shoes, and my computers.

I sleep here, drink coffee here, and might eat something here too. In this tiny room, instead of my own big house. It is noisy outside. When you go out, there are huge numbers of different people, unfamiliar surroundings, a time change, different air, different weather, different water, some strange pressure somewhere all the time. You have to change your entire schedule, build a new one, and spend a lot of money. You aren't eating the way you are used to, and it isn't as though you have a choice, because you have to eat exclusively in restaurants. You also have to choose those restaurants, constantly dealing with some anxiety about the service and the quality of the food. You find yourself in a fairly negative arrangement, a negative situation." It is the same Paris, apparently. Nothing has changed. You can see it from one angle, and many people see it very positively. You can also see it very negatively. Just as I am sitting here now in the city and the home where I live. I can say I feel positive because, for example, I see my wife every evening and every morning, and I see my children.

I can work in the garden. I can play the piano, as I normally do. I go out and see the people I am used to seeing, meet the people and the partners I need to meet. I am in my own time zone, my own climate. I have the ocean nearby; I can easily go to the ocean. In Paris, I can't go to the ocean. At another moment, though, I can slip into this state: here I am at home again. The same daily routine, the huge number of issues, daily problems, and all sorts of tasks to carry out. And immediately I can turn that picture into something completely negative. So what does that amount to? This state of "good." The state of "good," when we say that everything is good. Why do I feel differently, then? This "good" is a kind of illusion that we have drawn for ourselves, a story we have told ourselves. Meanwhile, our inner state depends on something else. What does it depend on? On what parameters? What parameter does it depend on? How can we influence it? Can you be in a closed room and feel good regardless of the fact that it is a closed room? Or, equally, be somewhere wonderful, somewhere amazing, and feel good too, without worrying about something?

There are enormous numbers of people who feel negative, who feel bad, regardless of where they are. Or today you go for a walk with your children and feel joyful. Tomorrow you walk with your children. It is exactly the same situation, the same children; nothing much has changed, and you are indignant. So what influences your inner sense of joy, comfort, happiness, harmony, and a peaceful life? What influences it? Do you need to change external parameters for that: your job, business, projects, people, wall colors, rugs, apartments, countries? Or is the problem somewhere else? People who move to another country very often encounter a situation in wh—

Yes, a situation where, if they start feeling good, they say, "I feel good here, and I didn't feel so good there." Or they start feeling bad and say, "I would feel good over there, but I don't feel good here," without really understanding why they feel bad or good. Is that weather really what makes them feel good? Is simply being in a particular country really what makes them feel good? Is that boss really what makes them feel bad? Is their bad state really caused by people, the language those people speak, or the laws that country passes? What influences it? What influences it, and who decides? If we look at the concept of "good," people define it very differently. Recently I was talking to my mother early on a Saturday morning while preparing food for my dog. I live in California, in the United States, and I have a dog, a Russian borzoi. I am preparing her food, and my mother asks me something: "What do you put in it?" I start telling her what I feed the dog. She is on a raw diet, where the main part consists of raw meat, such as beef or lamb, and some of the diet has to be liver.

Another part consists of other organ meats. It is a fairly serious diet; I pay serious attention to her nutrition. There are vegetables in it, for example. My mother asks, "What vegetables do you put in?" I say, "I give her zucchini, or broccoli." "And what grains do you cook for her?" "I make either buckwheat or quinoa." My mother says, "If our retirees saw you"—she lives in Minsk—"they certainly wouldn't understand." She says, "They wouldn't understand." I say, "It isn't just retirees who wouldn't understand. My dog's monthly food costs me five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred dollars a month. I don't just choose beef; I choose good-quality beef, essentially the same beef I eat myself. Or good-quality lamb, the same lamb I eat myself. Or fish, good fish. And you choose it carefully. You decide that it must be wild-caught fish, from a particular ocean, say the Pacific, with a particular fat content. You choose particular foods." That is a very interesting aspect.

Many people say, "We feed our dog like a human." They scrape together the leftovers of their own meal and give them to the dog. And they poison the dog with that. What counts as good? For many people, if they hear the dollar amount, that would be good for their whole family. Someone else will look at the types of food, as my mother said: "The retirees would look at it." They too would feel somewhat uncomfortable. Why uncomfortable? Because the dog eats better. The point isn't even how the person eats, although that matters too. I remember hearing on television about twenty years ago that there were restaurants where the bill exceeded a thousand dollars. My mind couldn't grasp what that meant, what that was. A restaurant bill of more than a thousand dollars: what does that mean? It is hard to take in. You don't understand the very fact of what is happening, and you start explaining it away: "It seems like the same thing. The people here just wanted it, and the people there charged them. It is just some unnecessary fashion, something unreasonable." You start describing it somehow without having understood it or even thought it through. What is there to discuss about the way my dog eats?

What counts as good? People say, "She eats well." But to me, she doesn't eat that well, because I cannot find certain kinds of organ meats for her. To me, her diet isn't that good because I have trouble buying certain particular organ meats that aren't sold here, or at least are hard to find in the quality and form I need, or require a trip somewhere to get them. Here is another example I want to examine. Throughout her life, my grandmother would always say, "The main thing is that there is no war." You would visit her. She lived through changes in her society and surroundings from standing in a lake during the war when she was young to an age when she talked to her grandchildren over FaceTime—and her great-grandchildren, or rather, her great-grandchildren, not her grandchildren, over FaceTime. She always said, "The main thing is that there is no war." This attitude is very interesting. Everything is always good. The main thing is that there is no war. It is an established picture of what "good" means, a picture established specifically for her. Just as many people create a picture for themselves: good is when... When there is a husband, a wife, two children, and two or three rooms.

Or four rooms is good, or five rooms is good, or two rooms is good. What counts as good? Well, a dog is good too. And if you have a vacation cottage, that is even better. Or two vacation cottages, or three, or a house, or a house in another country. A house in another country must be really good. A house in Europe or America: of course that is good. What about a house on an island? And going on vacation twice a month is goo—twice a year is good. Or once a year is good, or four times a year is good, or eight times a year is good. What counts as good? All of this is social conditioning. Is working eight hours a day good, or two hours, or twelve, or sixteen? What does "good" even mean? And is your own state connected to that "good"? If we listen carefully to what is said about "good," to politicians, economists, psychologists, various leaders, scientists, entertainers, celebrities, and bloggers, we will see an incredibly wide range of meanings for "good." Someone will shout that good means not working and living on passive income.

Someone will say good means working fourteen hours a day and working toward the future. Unhappy about working toward the future. That person will also call it a very good situation. Or someone will say good means raising your child under strict control: the child grows up, obeys you, goes to college, gets good grades, and then works. Look how good they are! Someone else will say good means you and your child understand one another. Not in the sense that you adore one another enormously, but that you are willing to hear and listen to one another. Above all, you are willing to listen to your child, and nothing else matters. Neither college, nor work, nor school, nor any of the child's relationships matter. So what does "good" mean? What do you do with it? How do you learn not to live inside a closed room, in that state of "The main thing is that there is no war"? On the one hand, I heard this from my grandmother, and everyone will say, "Why are you picking on retirees and veterans of the Great Patriotic War?" On the one hand, that statement seems to have a right to exist. On the other hand, it has ruined millions of lives, because an enormous amount of manipulation is built on it.

You come and say, "There is a problem here," and they tell you, "There is no problem. The main thing is that there is no war." You say, "What do you mean, no problem? There is a problem. My arm has been cut off." "The main thing is that there is no war." You say, "There is a problem. The exchange rate has changed tenfold." "No, the main thing is that there is no war. There is no problem." "Grandma, meat has gotten ten times more expensive." "It is nothing serious. The main thing is that there is no war. We'll manage. The main thing is that there is no war." "Listen, this person can't have children." "It is nothing serious. The main thing is that there is no war." "I was beaten up and cheated on the street." "It is nothing serious. Don't think about them. The main thing is that war hasn't broken out." Millions—in today's world, it is no longer millions, but hundreds of millions of ruined destinies and lives through manipulation. The main question is what counts as good. But something interesting happens when people establish certain boundaries for what is good. They set those boundaries and try to adjust their own state to fit that "good," saying, "If I am within those boundaries, that is precisely what influences my inner state. So if I buy another rug for the wall, or arrange another vacation during the year, or invite guests over, or, I don't know, start a YouTube channel, or write something to someone on Instagram, or make another trip to the theater..."

People arrange things to make them even better, intensifying the "good" that supposedly influences their inner state. Then something happens that destroys that picture of "everything is good." It falls apart. For example, someone says, "For things to be good, the main thing is to have a family. I must have a wife or a husband, and we will live together our whole lives." And suddenly, that person dies.

"We will live together our whole lives." And suddenly, that person dies or leaves for someone else, and you are alone. What happens then? What happens then? How do you feel? Or people lived in their country saying, "The main thing is that there is no war." Suddenly, war! Wars have now broken out in many countries around the world where they seemingly should not have happened under any circumstances. They should not have happened at all. Under no circumstances did it seem possible. What do people need then? What state are they in if they staked their entire life, their entire chain of cause and effect, on the idea that if this is absent, things are good? What do they do then? Someone's child is growing up. The main thing is that the child doesn't get seriously ill. Or the main thing is that the child doesn't die before we do. If we look at death, everyone will die. Children will all die too. Everyone's children will die too. I have four children, but that is obvious. What does someone tell themselves about their children? They will die. But the main thing is that it happens after I do. If you give someone the chance to choose, ask them some questions, they will feel very differently about acknowledging the fact that their child died before them or after them.

If it is after them, they say, "That is no longer really my... I am not there for it." The main thing is for it to happen that way. Of course, people lose an enormous, enormous amount of energy over this. Above all, they spend their entire lives under a delusion. It turns out that people live their whole lives believing there are factors, parameters, or some setting that creates a good inner state. A friend of mine always said, "I'll earn a million dollars and move to Thailand." Obviously, that was an illusion, a kind of dream. Many people go looking at houses or apartments. I know all sorts of people who do this constantly. A friend of mine says, "They are playing house." They play house; they look at creating an illusion of being in a particular setting. These are dreams. I have nothing against dreams. The question is this: do you allow for the possibility that it won't happen? And do you allow for the possibility that something much better might happen? When you go to that house, do you think that this particular house, having this house, will be good and will therefore make you feel good? Or do you understand perfectly well that this house might be a worthwhile goal, or this apartment might be a worthwhile goal, but that in no way means you will feel good when you buy it or move in, or that you will be in a very good inner state?

There is a very interesting example: people often define good as not having to work. I give people a choice. I say, "Imagine that you are about to start getting paid a million dollars a month. A million dollars a month, and you won't have to do anything. It is very important that you do no work, but that you sit there, sit at work, go to work, be at work, without working or doing anything. You just get a million dollars. What would you choose?" People say, "I would choose that in a heartbeat." "What if you had to do it for forty years?" "No, I wouldn't choose forty years." "Would you choose forty years for a billion dollars a month?" Some say, "I would." "There is one catch: there will be no vacation. You must always come in. If you don't come in, you die immediately." The person starts feeling very strange. You begin lowering the requirement: "All right, not eight hours, but six." "Oh, I'll agree to six." "Four. Four." "Oh, I would definitely agree to four." "What about thirty minutes?" "Thirty minutes, absolutely. No problem at all." "But it is thirty minutes, and you will only get two vacations: one week each, twice a year.

Are you sure you agree?" "What happens if I don't come in?" "You die immediately." "What if I'm sick, or my transportation breaks down, and I don't come in for those thirty minutes? What happens?" "You die immediately." If you go deeper, you immediately understand: are you really prepared to get into something like that or not? In our lives, enormous numbers of people get into arrangements like that. A great many do so at work. I recently led a session—I have various groups—and shared an interesting fact. Right now, I am at a point where I can essentially work as much as I want during the day, because I am involved in various businesses, activities, boards of directors, and projects. I am not tied to their day-to-day operations. In general, I can mostly regulate my own day. That means I can just stare ahead all day, or go and look at the ocean, or open my computer and spend twenty-four hours straight at it. There is a very important fact here. My relationship with my wife is such that, if she knows I am working, she will never try to say, "Listen, it is your turn to bathe the children," or "It is your turn to read a book," or "It is your turn to do something."

In general, I can always say, "I'm working." There is freedom here; there is a choice. That choice is very interesting. It irritates an enormous number of people around me. And it creates an enormous number of problems. The choice not to work creates an enormous number of problems. I realize that there is a part of me that says, "It would probably be nicer and easier if you had a job for fourteen hours a day, where you went to the office from morning until evening, as always. That would be good, because it would be much easier to be in that state. Leave on autopilot, spend twelve to fourteen hours in meetings on a predetermined schedule, with people putting things in front of you to sign. Get into a car, get out, sit down, and your driver takes you somewhere. You arrive. Every day follows that pattern, every day follows that pattern. You have no time to think about whether to go to the ocean now, call a partner, lead a spiritual gathering, paint a picture, play the piano, record a video, call another partner, have a business meeting here, meet an interesting person in the Valley, meet to discuss an IT project, go and look at possible investments, go eat in a restaurant, spend some money, or fly to another country.

You don't have to think about any of that at all. Maybe that is what a good state is?" I gave this example in the group: I feel that it wouldn't be bad, that having this freedom creates a certain problem, on the one hand. On the other hand, of course, it creates no problem at all. This freedom allows me to live a broad, wonderful, full life. Or does it? I know people who don't work and are happy that they don't work. They say, "Whatever else happens, I have no intention of working." There are people who work and say, "Whatever else happens, under no circumstances will I be without work." Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a young woman. I said, "How much do you want to earn in life?" She said, "I want to earn twenty thousand dollars." I said, "Do you understand that this might not happen?" She said, "I don't want to believe that." I said, "Here is a simple example: you get married, and your husband earns five hundred million dollars." She said, "No, I don't need that." I said, "Wait. You don't need it? Am I hearing you correctly?" She said, "It is important to me to earn my own money."

I said, "Am I hearing correctly that, with all the same circumstances and the same love for another person, you would refuse to be with someone who earns five hundred million dollars a month but agree to be with someone who earns twenty thousand dollars?" She froze. Why did she freeze? Because her idea of "good," this illusion of earning her own money, outweighs any reasonable perception of the situation as a whole. You become fixated on some "good" that might happen in the future, thinking it will make you feel absolutely wonderful in the future. Once again, even right now—we began the video with this—you can be in a situation where everything around you seems good, yet you don't feel very good. What is happening, then? What is happening? Some people start justifying the whole picture: "I don't need a high income, for example, because happiness isn't about how much money you have. I'll be just as happy eating a hot dog as eating a three-hundred-dollar steak in a restaurant." Those things really are unrelated in terms of happiness, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't earn money. Nor does it mean that large—

It doesn't mean that large amounts of money lead directly to some tragedy or problems. Although there really are enormous numbers of examples where people felt better without money than with it. The most important thing here is to understand the solution. To really understand your own state, it is important always to look and understand why you want to obtain something or do something. Why? What will it really lead to? Don't deceive yourself. Many people rush out and buy all sorts of things, go on vacation, or give gifts without fundamentally examining the cause of how they feel, the problem, the cause—the cause of the problem with their own state. They don't examine it. The most important thing, when you want something, is to ask yourself: exactly why do I want this, and what will it lead to? That doesn't mean you have to give it up, but at least don't deceive yourself. At least don't deceive yourself. When people start a business, they immediately invest all their hopes in it and want it to resolve their whole life: earn money, bring happiness, harmony, joy, and daily development. Yet how important it actually is to separate the business from your life, look at it independently, and say, "I will start this business solely for the money.

And I will buy this thing because I like stylish things. Why not buy it? Just because I like stylish things." It allows you to stop deceiving yourself. It allows you to perceive cause and effect as they really are. It allows you to stop being mistaken about the true source of joy. It may seem that I am not offering a specific solution in this video, but that is precisely the solution. Step one is to stop living under the illusion that your inner sense of joy, harmony, and happiness is connected to the enormous number of supposedly "good situations" that people have created and described around you. Otherwise, you are always placing a bet on a particular probability, like putting down a chip in a casino. When that probability blows up and things don't match, it is almost impossible to cope. Above all, you become defenseless when it comes to real actions and real life. You are not prepared to live through certain things calmly. Recently, under one of my videos—I don't remember on which channel, because I also have a channel about exploring technologies—someone wrote, "Alexander talked easily with his child about death. That is strange. People don't usually talk to children about death."

I had given an example of discussing a person's death, my own death, or my child's death with my child. That is a very interesting aspect the person noticed. Is the important thing never to discuss death with children, never to approach it, or not to discuss death in your family for fear of bringing it into your home? Although that is absurd, because death surrounds us; we will all end up there. Or is it to learn to talk about it calmly, not from the perspective that you are attracting it, but from the perspective of a normal, healthy, mature, reasonable person capable of understanding clearly? You know that everyone will die. You discuss it calmly. Without question, someone in my family will die first: me or my wife. We need to take that normally and calmly. If there is a chance my wife will die first, I definitely need to be able to live calmly with her absence. Some will call that unemotional or disconnected, but it is a reasonable response, a reasonable response to what is happening, because I might live forty years without her. Just as I might die. In that case, I supposedly don't need to prepare for it. Supposedly. But then she too might live forty years without me. This isn't about planning it, writing a will, setting money aside, sharing passwords, or describing and preparing for everything that will happen. It is about calmly and sensibly understanding that it could happen at any moment, so you don't fall into a coma over it, so you remain clearheaded instead of living within psychological trauma or psychiatric illness.

Which is what happens to an enormous number of people. They fall into a coma after losing a business, losing loved ones, or losing their own health. They fall into a coma instead of continuing to truly live from a place of awareness. It is very important not to deceive yourself about this.