You don’t deserve to be happy.

This article is an excerpt from my upcoming book, No one really deserves to be happy.

You don't "deserve" to be happy.

No one does. Not you, me, or anyone else. In fact, I think expecting things to just work out for us in life is how we get ourselves into trouble in the first place. For real. Just hear me out for a second.

Based on my years of experience, and theses from some of the greatest minds of our time, anything good, anything worth having in life takes work. Hard work.

Hard work. Sometimes, hard, grueling work over a very long period of time. You try, you fail, you learn from your failures, then you try again.

No matter what it is that you are working towards, Regardless of your goals, just trust me when I say that the hardest part of almost every audacious endeavor in life will be your innate ability to recognize what you are doing wrong and evolve.

Your ability to plan for the long-term and endure all the roadblocks and challenges said undertaking throws your way.

Not blaming others but just you doing some serious self-discovery. You are going to be your own arch-nemesis (in life). There are no haters. Not really. You just have to walk your own path and face yourself.

And that is the truth.

Whether you are trying to access happiness through success at work, love, business, school, or life in general, you must learn to self-analyze and work towards the best version of yourself you can be at any given time. For it is the path that matters most. The path to attaining your own unique version of "happy".

That being said, on this path, this tolle Reise, You must learn to be completely honest with yourself in all matters. Know that no wins in life will come easy. And you shouldn't expect them to.

You must work your butt off for what you desire in life. In the short-term and long-term. Especially in the long-term. For as a consequence of the wins you seek in life, you, my friend, might just find the happiness you seek.

The slice of heaven on earth we all work so hard to find. If you are under the age of 40, you probably didn’t and still may not expect things to be this way.

I see young folks today struggle to accept that life sucks. That life is not fair. In life, real life, the bad guy doesn't always get arrested in 30 minutes. I don't care what Dick Wolf says. The good guys don't always get rewarded.

In fact, “the moral high ground”, as good as it may make you feel, serves you no real purpose in the long term.

This life we live is a crapshoot. And as mere mortals, we can only control the hunt, the path, and the desire to take said path.

We can only try. We can only work hard towards the happy lives that we so desperately want and hope that if we stay true to who we are and what we really want if we are kind to others, we may be able to experience some considerable measure of joy in life.