Why Aren't You as Happy as You Used to Be?

[00:01] I'm depressed and feel like the world is closing in on me these days. The scary thing is that every time I tell someone about it, they say, " I'm just like you." They ask, "What's going on? Why aren't we as happy as we used to be when we were kids?" To find out the

[00:17] answer, I asked three people why they weren't as happy as they used to be, and honestly, their answers shocked me. You'll understand why I'm saying this, especially at the end of the month. In

[00:30] the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Good evening, friends. This period is definitely not one of the best times of my life. I feel completely unhappy these days. It's obvious I've I feel completely unhappy these days. It's obvious I've

[00:45] military training at university. I need to get my paperwork from the university and be done. I'm going to military training now, and I'm wide awake today, feeling refreshed and ready. So, I shaved my beard and So, I shaved my beard and I feel a terrible feeling of not being happy. I

[00:59] feel suffocated, I feel unhappy, especially since I spent some time alone. Of course, I couldn't work or do anything because military training took up most of my time. So, during those few moments I spent alone, I felt even less happy. I started to

[01:13] feel happy by remembering the past. I felt nostalgic for the past, nostalgic for childhood. I started remembering situations that used to make me happy, but now these situations don't make me happy anymore. So, if you feel the same way and ask yourself

[01:28] me, we're going to military training to ask people why they're going to military training to ask people why they're not as happy as they used to be?

[01:44] happy as we used to be? The truth is, when I started thinking about my childhood, I realized there were situations that contrasted sharply with the situations I experience in my life now. For example, I remember the first day of Eid when I was little. I swear, on that day, I was so happy I couldn't even... The

[01:59] day before Eid, I was so excited for the first day of Eid. I'd prepare my Eid outfit and lay it out next to me on the bed, and I'd sleep next to it so that as soon as I knew there was an hour or half an hour left until Eid, I'd get dressed and go out, feeling so

[02:14] happy that I was going to spend Eid. Now, when Eid comes, I don't feel that way anymore. Similarly, on Now, when Eid comes, I don't feel that way anymore. Similarly, on school, you knew that on that day you could go out and play with your friends in the street.

[02:27] For example, I used to play on Friday afternoons; that was a must-do day for me to go out and play with my friends. I used to be so happy, I swear to God. I mean, I wouldn't be lying if I said I was just waiting for the day to come so I could go play with my friends. It was an incredible joy. Now I have

[02:40] free time, and even if I had the chance to do that, I wouldn't be as happy as I used to be. as I used to be, Ibrahim?" Since I don't have time to

[02:53] work these days, and I spend a lot of time alone, I started to understand the reasons why we're not as happy as we used to be. The first thing is responsibility. You used to have no responsibilities. You were just sitting around, completely carefree. We did

[03:08] now. Now, as work responsibilities. The most important thing is that you don't have anything planned for, you just save up. It's simple, but back but back then we didn't worry about the

[03:23] idea that you now have responsibilities. Back then you didn't carry that responsibility; there were no responsibilities on us. All that concerned us, or our biggest problems, was that, for example, the cartoon we were waiting for, like Kelduyan, would

[03:37] n't come on time. I'm sitting here waiting for 3 o'clock! SpongeBob! It might be worse than you! Or Tom and Jerry, two episodes, I swear! Oh yeah, or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they got stuck on one episode or something! And you... Oh,

[03:51] now... Now you have an awareness of responsibility. You have what they call the Now, the older you get, the more responsibilities you have. Back then you were worried about getting a job, you were all that. Now you have... Now that you're

[04:07] responsible for your future, you didn't have that level of awareness back then. For example, back in school, you did study, but it was always your mom who pushed you to study: "Study for your future, study to succeed, study so you can be something good when you grow up."

[04:22] But you suddenly grew up and realized you were responsible. You told yourself, "Study, and if you don't, it will affect your future, and you won't be able to achieve the things you be able to achieve the things you want." No one will bear that responsibility but you. No one is pushing you for what's best for you

[04:35] want." No one will bear that responsibility but you. No one is pushing you for what's best for you home might even understand what you're studying or doing because you've chosen a specific field, whether in high school or university. Your family might have limited experience in the subject, so they might not understand.

[04:47] Now you have a sense of responsibility. If I study, then... It will benefit me if I get into the college I want, so I can study what I want. But if I don't study, I might get a bad grade or fail and have to repeat the year. And

[05:00] repeating the year isn't good. You have a big responsibility to study. You'll start to find that many other responsibilities are starting to appear in your life. Another thing is the idea of ​​becoming responsible for yourself. Many young people, when they're young, their

[05:13] fathers are the ones who provide for them 100%. But some young people decide around university age, or high school age, or whatever age, to be self-reliant and decide to provide for themselves. You build yourself up. No one is supporting you. No one is supporting you. and decide to provide for themselves. You build yourself up. No one is supporting you. No one is supporting you.

[05:27] for yourself. You are 100% self-reliant. For example, if you are one of those people who started to be self-reliant from the moment you entered university and started working and supporting yourself, and I did that, then you start Now you have the responsibility to provide for yourself. You

[05:42] might not have been responsible for providing for yourself before, but now you are. For example, there's no longer a yourself before, but now you are. For example, there's no longer a buy what you want or what you need. Now, if your family is of modest means, the

[05:57] allowance they give you won't be enough to cover all your needs because your needs have increased, and your expenses have increased. Therefore, you need to work to be able to provide for these needs. If you don't work, you won't be able to provide for these needs, and so the

[06:12] matter will come back to you. You need to have some kind of income to meet your needs. So, you have become responsible for providing for yourself. There's no longer a father to give you an you want, and so on. Now you have the responsibility to provide for yourself. And of course, people

[06:26] who provide for themselves are excellent people, and people who haven't yet had the opportunity to do something... This is something that teaches responsibility a lot. What we're talking about is a type of spending, something simple. Some people are responsible for

[06:39] spending on others, for example, their families. These people are married or something, so they spend on their families. Some people reach a point where, instead of spending on themselves, they work, study, and spend on themselves and their families. So, you've become

[06:53] responsible. You didn't have this responsibility before. So, your sense of responsibility keeps increasing. And as the sense of responsibility increases, the enjoyment you had before decreases because you didn't feel this way before, so you felt more happy. Now, with responsibility, your enjoyment naturally decreases.

[07:09] Also, another type of responsibility is that you become responsible for your future. You become responsible for your future. You might have been like that before, you did n't have any real understanding of the future. When you were

[07:21] young, you'd say, "Oh, I need to study, I don't know how." What's with all the talk about "I'll do this, I won't do that"? Now that you're older, you're responsible. You can't afford to waste time like before, or waste it on trivial things, because if you do, it will negatively impact your future.

[07:34] Things will fall apart for you. Back then, someone could guide you, push you, but now that option isn't available. If you go to university, you'll study, and that will affect your future. For example, if you become someone who will find a job in your field, if you don't study, no one will tell you

[07:49] not to. This will hinder your future. The things you planned for the future won't happen. You now have full responsibility for your future. The simple perspective you had when you were young—no, now you

[08:03] you were young—no, now you see life from a much broader perspective. As a young person, I've come to see that one of the main reasons we're not as happy as we used to be is... The second thing is the feeling of responsibility, which is that you've started to see life realistically.

[08:18] We've become more realistic about life now. example that came to mind? You know when you were in love with a girl in kindergarten or school? You know that rosy love, where you had no understanding of any responsibility. When you

[08:32] grew up and decided to love a girl, you realized you needed an engagement ring, she had to prepare herself, and so on. So now you've started to understand life realistically. You understand? You used to have a somewhat unrealistic view of life, or as you might say, a cartoonish view of life. When

[08:45] you were little, you'd think, "What do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a police officer, I want to be an engineer, I want to be a doctor." But when you grew up, you realized that to get into medicine, you need to study a lot. Engineering requires intense studying both before and after you

[08:58] enter it. Being an officer involves military life, discipline, and other things. So, you've begun to understand life in its true form. You've started to realize that things weren't as superficial as you thought when you were little. Back then, if you faced a problem, like someone bothering you at school

[09:14] or doing something to you, you could go and complain to your parents, and they would get upset and get you your rights back. But now that you're older, if someone bothers you, or is annoying to you, or does any of those things to you, you can't just go and tell your parents. You

[09:28] understand that not everyone is good. You might meet very bad people who treat you badly, or toxic people, people who aren't psychologically healthy. Life will put you in situations with them, and you'll have to deal with them and even solve the problems

[09:43] yourself. Put this into your studies, put this into your work, put this into your relationships, put this into a million things. So here you are starting to see life in its true form. But before, you didn't have this perspective, so your enjoyment was limited. But when you started to understand these things, your enjoyment naturally began to increase. The

[09:59] third thing is focusing on the present. Before, you lived your life: the time I was with my family, the time I was watching a match. In other words, before, you were very focused on what you were doing, focused on the present moment,

[10:13] because you didn't have a large number of memories, or enough awareness of memories, that would make you nostalgic or yearning for the past. And you didn't have awareness of the future. You know, you especially feel this if you're someone with ambitions to do something. Your mind involuntarily

[10:29] goes in a tremendous way towards thinking about the future, until you find what you need. You find that before... When you study, you have focus. If you study, you have strong focus on studying. You find most young people saying, "I was one of the top students in elementary school. Will I be able to do or

[10:43] achieve what I want? wanted to do in my twenties when I reach a certain age, for example, 30?" So, I see this as one of the reasons why we don't feel as

[10:55] happy as we used to. Why? Because his focus was still on the Why? Because his focus was still on the past, the troubles hadn't yet entered his mind, and the anxieties about the future had n't reached him. The fourth thing is excess, or an abundance of blessings.

[11:10] You know when your dad used to tell you, " Take this 100 pounds for my allowance," and you were little, say six years old? You'd be like, "Oh, come on, calm down! I have 100 pounds, and I'll spend it in three days!" So back then, you appreciated the value of 100 pounds very much. But now,

[11:24] you see that 100 pounds isn't even enough for your daily expenses. Apply this to everything. I know the 100-pound example is a very simplistic one, but we apply it to everything. And this brings us to the fifth thing, which I see as very important: going against

[11:37] means that as you grew up, you started to be exposed to stimuli that give you higher dopamine levels, so consequently, the things that used to give you Low dopamine levels in childhood no longer make you feel happy because you were exposed to things that, when you grew up, gave you much higher levels of dopamine, you understand? You know, back in the day, as they say, you

[11:51] were still in your infancy, still in your natural state, nothing had corrupted your instincts or anything like that. But as you grew up, you started being exposed to stimuli that made your dopamine levels surge in a terrifying way. So,

[12:03] things that were normal and released dopamine naturally back then won't release the same dopamine you need now. For example, when you get a piece of chocolate that you really love, you're so happy to eat it. But when you're

[12:17] older, when you eat the same chocolate, it doesn't make you as happy as it used to. You won't example, I'll give you an example now, and it's a realistic example, but unfortunately, it's a bit harsh, but it's what came to mind. Back then, the idea of your dad letting you go out with your friends

[12:31] your dad letting you go out with your friends alone was something that was very important to you. It used to give you incredible pleasure, but when you grew up, for example, and started making friends, and those friends, for instance, introduced you to pornography, it's well known that watching porn gives a person terrifying levels

[12:46] of dopamine. So when you watch it again and again, and your brain gets used to that huge amount of dopamine, your outings with your friends, which used to give you dopamine in a normal, healthy way, won't be pleasing anymore. You want that

[13:00] massive dopamine. Back then, you were on your natural, healthy path. You know that? Here's an example that describes this: if one of you had an illicit relationship before—and of course, I don't recommend this at all. I believe anyone who wants to be in a relationship should do so legitimately, and you'll understand why later—

[13:16] now, anyone who had an illicit relationship back then, for example, went out with a girl or something. If you, for instance, got into a relationship and fell in love with the girl you were with in your first relationship, or the one who You got involved with her, then you left her, then you started to see another girl to befriend or get into a

[13:30] relationship with, and you loved her too, and then you started to leave her. Now, the third girl that you will start to love, you will feel that you no longer feel the feeling of love that you felt, for example, with the first girl, because you started to deplete your feelings, or you started, as they say, to go against

[13:45] your nature, making you no longer feel the feelings and emotions that you felt with the first girl that you got involved with. And focus strongly on this point, meaning you will always find that there is a cry against people who have been involved with several times that they do not know how to forget the first girl that they loved in their life. Why? Because this was

[13:59] true love, real love, the kind of love where feelings actually came out from the person. But the second and third ones will start to show feelings, but not to the same extent as the first one. The sixth and final thing is social media. I'm telling you, young people, all the young people, from the first

[14:13] year of age, or eight years old, all of them are on the phone 24 hours a day. Honestly, guys, if I'm being serious, even though this is my job, social media in this particular area is one of the worst things that can make you not feel as happy as you used to be. Back in the day, or rather,

[14:26] happy as you used to be. Back in the day, or rather, I'm talking about my generation, the generation of 23, 24, 25, or older, social media didn't exist in your day when you were young. I just want to clarify that our minds work through comparisons, and this isn't

[14:40] abnormal or unusual at all. On the contrary, it's perfectly normal. Our brains naturally operate through comparisons. Social media constantly makes you compare yourself to people you see on it. Someone 18 years old has made a million pounds, and you're still just looking at that blogger your

[14:55] age who got married, bought a house, and a car, while you have n't done anything yet. The point is, you're judging based on two minutes of someone's life that you literally saw. You don't know what happens in the other 24 hours of a day. So, based on those two

[15:08] minutes, you start judging your entire life, and your ambitions become frighteningly high, to the point where you might see any achievement you're currently making as... Zero in relation to your ambition that you want, so this happens, a cycle of thinking that

[15:24] flagellates the self in a terrifying way, all because of social media, and all of this is normal to make you feel that you are not as happy as before. So, guys, what is the solution? I don't know how to feel any joy. I really feel suffocated and drained. I have no energy for anything, and I can't explain it. I do

[15:41] n't feel any kind of happiness in my life right now. What's the solution? As a young person, I believe that happiness doesn't come from things. Happiness comes from within. Happiness is the decision to be happy. Let me tell you something: if happiness were in money, then the

[15:56] people who have billions and are killing themselves wouldn't be doing so because they're living happily right now. So that means happiness isn't in money. What if happiness is in success? Well, if happiness is in success, we wouldn't hear about scientists or

[16:10] very successful people in their fields or whatever they do, whether they're actors or whatever. They would also be killing themselves. So that also means that happiness isn't in success. also means that happiness isn't in success. I believe that happiness It's a decision you make to

[16:23] be happy. Decide to be happy with the cup of coffee you're drinking, decide to be happy with the simple outing you'll take with your friends. This doesn't mean I'm saying money and success don't bring happiness. Of course, money and success are very important

[16:38] factors in happiness, but they aren't the only things that bring it. There are many other things that bring happiness. Happiness is being content with what you have now and having the ambition to increase it, but being satisfied with what you have and your current situation. The surprise

[16:53] I've been saving for you until the end of the episode is that you'll never feel as happy as you used to be. Yes, I swear to God, I know I surprised you with this, but it's the truth. The truth is that our childhood, which we wish we could go back to, is a period that has passed, and we won't be able to feel

[17:08] period that has passed, and we won't be able to feel its happiness because that happiness was fleeting. Every stage of our lives has its own unique joys. For example, you might have enjoyed cartoons immensely, or going out with friends, or the first

[17:21] day of a holiday, feeling incredibly excited and happy. It's perfectly natural that as you grow older, you won't feel the same level of joy in those things. This doesn't mean the joy has disappeared, but rather that you've reached an age where things have become accessible that weren't possible when

[17:37] you were younger, and these things now bring you joy. For example, you might not have been able to experience love with the opposite sex, to fall in love with a girl, marry her, and spend your life with her, because you weren't ready for such a thing; you were still a child. But as you

[17:53] grew older and became capable of doing such things, they became permissible. This is a source of joy that you never experienced before. You'll understand it now. I feel the basics: you're no longer restricted by things that were forbidden to you when you were young. Later, after a long life, when you pass your twenties and enter your

[18:08] thirties, forties, and fifties, and start having children or grown sons and daughters, the moment you see your child walk for the first time will be the happiest moment

[18:20] child is born will bring you immense joy. The moment you see your child graduate and become a responsible adult, you'll feel you've fulfilled your purpose in life, thank God, and you'll be incredibly happy. When you were young, you might have thought playing sports was

[18:36] physically strenuous and disliked it, but when you're older, in your fifties, sixties, or seventies, and you find yourself playing sports, it will bring you immense joy. In short, you'll never feel as

[18:48] happy as you used to because you're in a phase now with its own unique kind of happiness. What's required of you in this phase is to seek out the things that should make you happy, even if they're simple, and enjoy them. Because if you pass this phase, you'll enter a next one where some of the things that made you

[19:04] happy in this phase won't be available to you. So learn to enjoy yourself fully in every phase you go through, whether you're young, a teenager, in your twenties, thirties, or forties. Each phase has its own kind of happiness. Learn to enjoy yourself in your current phase.

[19:20] enjoy yourself in your current phase. Peace.