3 (un)Happiness Lessons we can learn from Elon Musk
Not What You Think: This Week in Happiness
Hope you're doing well. It's been a few weeks and the world has gone crazy again. But in the midst of all the chaos, I came across a YouTube comment that made everything click.
Our story will begin with a man named Elon Musk who started a few companies and became quite wealthy. Some ventures seemed to be purely for profit, some flopped, and some had a real positive visions for the world behind them. But from the start, he was far from perfect.
He was a poor father. He tookover Tesla and kicked out the founders. He once baselessly called a rescue diver a pedophile. (He later apologized.) The warning signs were always there, his need for control, his obsession with public perception, his inability to let things go.
People knew he wasn't perfect, but for the most part, he was admired, even if he was volatile.
Here is a tweet from that time, oh how things have changed.
Now:
He got richer and richer as Tesla's value skyrocketed. But at some point, things started to go downhill. Maybe it was the ego boost from his success, maybe it was the need to prove himself, or maybe only someone with an already damaged ego will go to these extents to pursue wealth.
Whatever the reason, Musk went down the wrong rabbit hole and never found his way back.
The beginning of the end may have been a $1 million bet. (Musk bet a million Sam Harris bet 1000 and a bottle of tequila)
Musk bet that COVID cases would stay below 35,000. Harris even offered to raise the threshold to 3.5 million, but Musk refused. Of course, within weeks, cases exploded past 600,000. Off by a few orders of magnitude.
When Harris followed up with a text asking if 600,000 was greater than 35,000, Musk never responded. That silence marked the end of their friendship.
From there, Musk seemed to double down, not just on his mistakes, but on a worldview shaped by conspiracy and resentment. He threw his support behind Donald Trump and, after acquiring Twitter, used it as a platform to push his increasingly erratic beliefs.
And things have only gotten worse. Several of his children's mothers have publicly tried to reach him on Twitter - one even citing a medical emergency. He's fired thousands of federal employees and, in one of the strangest twists, was caught faking an achievement in a video game. (The least despicable and yet most pathetic action).
All of this has peeled back the layers, revealing what Musk has become along with highlighting those early warning signs.
To make this clear:
He has access to all the information in the world, yet he chooses ignorance and hate.
He has more money and success than almost anyone, having founded some of the most influential companies of our time, yet he's still so insecure that he pays people to play video games for him and then lies about it.
He has several partners and children, but is not a good father to any of them.
These are all lessons worth learning:
Question your sources. Have the epistemic humility to admit when you're wrong. Don't dig yourself deeper out of stubborness.
Money and success mean nothing if you're empty inside. True fulfillment comes from the inside out, not the other way around.
Sex and kids don't equal meaningful relationships. Connection isn't about numbers-it's about presence, care, and effort.
This is just getting sad to watch, he has everything we think would make one happy, but really has nothing of importance. Elon Musk had it all and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Better Vibes exercise
Too much content - especially news - can drain your energy and make you feel worse. Scrolling endlessly doesn't add much to your life, but creating does.
Try shifting from passive consumption to active creation today:
Make a collage.
Sing a song.
Write a poem.
Even something small can spark joy and get you involved in life instead of just watching it happen.
More Sources:
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IF YOU DO ONE THING THEN LISTEN TO THIS!