When you first see a copy of this book you’ll see it’s front page with the iconic “The Eternal Pursuit of Unhappiness” title, and then a subtitle directory below: “Being very good is no good. You have to be very, very, very, very, good”. That’s right, FIVE verys.
It’s very rare that a book will grab my attention from JUST the title. I thought we weren’t supposed to judge books from the cover, but this one grabbed me — and I’m glad I went down the adventure of reading it. I will reflect on this through the lens of a Software Engineer and Cyber Security professional, but I imagine that this can be related-able to any profession — lets get into it!
Who Is this for?
Hey! Thanks for checking out and reading this blog post. I want to throw a quick disclaimer that this way of thinking is for those that take business ‘seriously’. For those who have a passion for striving for achievement. There is a casual way of going about business that I honestly have respect for. The things that are written below are for those that wish to push themselves beyond what is comfortable.
Divine Discontent
We Have a habit of divine discontent with our performance, It is an antidote to smugness - David Ogilvy
Right off the rip, this book seems to be talking to the readers subconscious (at least my subconscious). David knows that for his target audience, they all have a sense of discontent. We’ve all done something we’re pretty proud of in our line of work — only to scroll down youtube/x.com/tiktok and see someone do a feat 10x more impressive. It might sound depressing to always have those thoughts, but this sense of constant discontent can be harnessed as a motivational driving force and hence — the pursuit of unhappiness. David Ogilvy interprets the words as follows:
| Divine Discontent |
| DON’T BOW YOUR HEAD |
| DON’T KNOW YOUR PLACE |
| DON’T GIVE IN. DON’T GIVE UP |
| DON’T BE SO EASILY HAPPY WITH YOURSELF |
| DON’T GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT |
There were more words David used, but I think we get the gist. This guy is hard-core — quite the extreme philosophy! The remainder of this article will be about defining the habits that make this possible.
Vices and Virtues
The book talks about replacing 8 vice’s with 8 creative virtues. When it comes to gaining confidence and maturity in life — our virtues and morals are what allow us to sleep at night knowing we ‘are a good person’ or ‘had a great day’. I Encourage you, the reader, to reflect on your own virtues before settling in and reading this list.
| VICE — Remove This | VIRTUE — Aim for this |
| Fear | Courage |
| Expedience | Idealism |
| The Status Quo | Curiosity |
| Boring | Playfulness |
| Tyranny of Politeness | Candour |
| Cold Arithmetic | Intuition |
| Bureaucracy | Free-Spiritness |
| GIVING IN | PERSISTENCE |
Courage
There’s No shortage of brains in the industry. It’s the '[Spine]’ that tends to be missing
What a quote right? There are plenty of intelligent people in this world we live in, heck there’s even an AI that can just about solve any trivial problem. It’s Courage. It’s Courage. It’s Courage. That enables — or even BEGS — us to do something worthwhile in our lives. Fear is what leads to self-doubt and it is constantly grasping at our ankles to stay docile and not take risk.
In the shower. On a Noon walk. During a long car ride. The cozy moments that pass before we finally go to sleep. I guarantee you have no shortage of interesting ideas. All ideas truly are as David states it ‘fragile seeds that require protecting’. Think of those Ideas and protect them! Have a Spine! This whole fear & self-doubt is what is holding you back from even trying! Be Courageous. Be Daring.
Idealism
Raise your Sights! Blaze new trails! Compete with the immortals!
Guys, how often do we find ourselves just living in absolute POVERTY of ambition. We get so focused in on completing the next User Story. Making the next deliverable. Writing the next blog post that we fail to think about really impactful actions to take and build up too.
When our dreams are little we become little. How great we become depends on the SIZE of our dreams. In this modern world where everything is always grabbing for your attention it can be hard to simply find the time to even THINK about what it is we want to aspire to create and build. We can be placed into a continued lull, a continued trace of content. Where life is ‘just good enough’ to not think too heavily about these things. Dream BIG. Put those goals out there, in the public eye, and achieve them!
Curiosity
An endless trail of ideas floats in the ether. You will only see them if you are curious.
Luckily for my cyber colleagues who are reading this — your profession probably already required a bit of curiosity to even get where you are today. The only way you get good at Cybersecurity is by asking ‘why’ ‘why’ ‘why’ pulling layers of abstraction away until your left with its naked truth in assembly. It’s pretty crazy how spectacular the human imagination is. Living life in a natural state of curiosity allows you to grow — to experience knew ideas. “When we’ve lost the capacity to see the world and everything in it as new: unreasonable, bewildering and something that gives rise to astonishment, we have become dim-sighted and stooped with age” .
Although its good be curious in a business setting — attempting to find that perfect product-market-fit or experimenting with different engineering processes. This is truly just a beautiful way to live ones life. Never utter the phrase “Ahh, because I’m xyz old… because I’m xyz years behind the curve… I won’t be able to do this”. I know that this isn’t a one-for-one correlation to curiosity, but if your mind craves the urge for a new experience DO NOT shut down the idea due to preconceived failings. This relates to any activity in life: Starting to sail. Learning to saw wood. Learning to fly a plane! Don’t close your eyes to the possibilities that continue to surround ourselves.
Playfulness
we are all born children. The trick is to remain one — Pablo Picasso.
All art and science have been invented by playful people, not serious people. Taking life seriously grounds one’s mind in the past to where it can never invent something new. It’s based in reason. To unleash the ‘left-brain’ so to speak — David encourages us to ‘have fun in life.’ Maybe show up to work in a funky suite. Wear a cowboy hat. Make an absurd joke during a weekly business meeting. If you remember at the beginning of this book, the ‘divine discontent’ did not seem to have much room for the idea of ‘fun’ or ‘playfulness’ but here we are being told it’s a virtue? I think it goes to show ‘playing’ and ‘working’ need to somehow go hand-in-hand. How can we make a job more fun?
Candor
We only get a spark when the stone and flint are moving in opposite directions.
I won’t go too into detail on this topic — I already wrote a blog post about how being polite isn’t efficient in business. There are a lot of successful businesses that carry this same mantra. I believe it was written within Jeff Bezos’ shareholder letters that “If I was given the opportunity to agree or argue on a given issue — I will choose argue 100% of the time — because the outcome of arguing is always a more beautiful result.” Steve Jobs had a similar mindset, but had the metaphor of a ‘rock tumbler’ grinding rocks into smooth stone.
Through the team, through that group of incredibly talented people bumping up against each other, having arguments, having fights sometimes, making some noise, and working together, they polish each other and they polish the ideas, and what comes out are these really beautiful stones. — Steve Jobs.
What can we takeaway from all these platitudes of Candor? Why is candor viewed in a bad eye? In the examples above it mentions candor with beauty — but in some LinkedIn circles you might get shamed for mentioning such a thing. In the situations mentioned above, I am sure both parties were coming AT EACHOTHER with candor. It’s a question of hiring! If you hire people and surround yourself with people that also enjoy candor — you will polish yourself. These people are the way they are not because they are judgemental of others — they have a internal standard of excellence or a certain ‘instinct’ of when something is not optimal and aren’t afraid to call it out. Never take the candor personal. Relay the candor into a ‘joust’ between coworkers — may the best idea win.
Intuition
Our business needs massive transfusions of talent. And talent. I believe, is most likely to be found among nonconformists, dissenters, and rebels. — D.O
Intuition is the art of listening to the guru within us. The best ideas are the ones not from the logical side of the mind — but gifts from the unconscious part. In every modern business, numbers, calculations, and evidence is needed before business decisions are made. What is this bureaucratic nonsense ? When it comes to making innovative ideas, D.O is trying to tell us that our subconscious knows what it knows. It doesn’t need the 5 months of research to prove weather or not an idea is worth pursuing. We are problem solvers. Be creative with your solutions and don’t rely on metrics and data at all times. Be a little ‘cracked’ be a little manic. Some ideas don’t need justification. Just do the damn thing!
Free-Spiritedness
I’m going to quote the book here directly because of how hilarious this paragraph is:
The creative process can broadly be divided into three stages.
One stage is for the mind to gather its raw materials.
Stage two is the mental digestion of the raw materials
The third and final phase is to get down on your knees and pray that the ideas will come.
Problem solving is a gamble. It’s terrifying! I can’t emphasis this enough, the amount of Project features that have been slammed on my desk! There isn’t a solution in sight for how to build this thing — however like D.O mentions, we break the process down into stages. Digest the information that is needed to battle the problem in front of you — and let those ideas flow! It can be overwhelming. Especially if there are subsystems that depend on one another. You mind will be calculating possibilities exponentially with the amount of variables that are at play.
What then do we do with this? The answer is not ‘more meetings’ the answer is more or less to become ‘alchemists’. Allow your subconscious to pull the rabbit out of the hat for you — when can be done in a relaxed environment where you are allowed to make mistakes, experiment, and break a standard-or-two.
Persistence
Dogged Determination is often the only trait that separates a moderately creative person from a highly creative one.
Ignorance, believe it or not, can sometimes be an asset. Experience can make us come to conclusions before trying. If you think you don’t know you know something, you think you don’t know. You open your eyes. Try. Try. Try. Look. Look. Look. The idea of invention is seeing the same thing people have always seen, but thinking of something else.
Conclusion
It’s crazy that this book was never officially published. It’s actually just an ‘on-boarding book’ for new hires to get in with the company culture. Crazy right? So yeah — those are the 8 habits that create a feeling of ‘divine discontent’. Have you always felt these virtues? Is this a new idea for you? Is there something you would change? Leave a comment below or message me on x.com ! Cheers!
