June 29, 2025 | #45 | read on The Happier Studio | Free Version
Welcome to The Happier Newsletter, a weekly newsletter where I provide actionable ideas to help you build a happier, healthier, and more meaningful life.
Let me save you a few years of waiting.
If you're like most ambitious, thoughtful people, there's a voice in your head that says:
Once things calm down…
Once I finish this project…
Once I’ve figured everything out…
Then I’ll finally live how I want to live.
You might not even realise you’re saying it. But it shows up in the way you delay the things that matter to you. The passion project you keep putting off. The version of yourself you keep postponing.
For years, I believed in that voice.
I thought life would eventually deliver me to a version of myself that felt complete. Free. Unstuck.
But here’s what I’ve learned: That version of life doesn’t arrive. Not unless you start living it now.
There’s a psychological concept that helped me name what I was experiencing. It’s called The Provisional Life, coined by Marie-Louise von Franz.
She described it as:
“A strange feeling that one is not yet in real life…
That someday, the real thing will come about.”
Sound familiar?
There’s a modern version of this too. It’s called Deferred Happiness Syndrome; the belief that your current life is just the prelude to some idyllic future.
But that “perfect future”?
It’s a mirage. You chase it, and it keeps moving. And all the while, your real life slips by.
I first started noticing this feeling years ago, long before I started The Happier Studio.
From the outside, it looked like everything was coming together.
I finished my degree, had moved to a new country, and started my first job in research. Life looked “on track.”
But inside? I felt disconnected. Like I was waiting for some switch to flip that would make life feel real.
I kept thinking: once I have more time... once I feel more confident… once I figure it all out… then I’ll start doing the things I really care about.
But that day never came.
Eventually, I realised something important: There is no clear line between now and then. Between surviving and thriving. Between the version of you that’s overwhelmed and the one who finally feels free.
You don’t arrive at the life you want. You build it right in the middle of the mess.
In the small decisions. In the ordinary days. In the version of life that doesn’t look perfect, but counts anyway.
This isn’t to say life doesn’t require sacrifice or effort. It does.
But the idea that you need to earn your joy? Or that life begins after you’ve done enough? That’s the lie.
Here’s what I believe now:
These moments—these chaotic, imperfect, ordinary moments—might be the ones you miss the most one day.
Not because they’re easy. But because they’re real. Because they were full of growth. Because they held the seeds of something meaningful.
You don’t have to abandon your responsibilities. You don’t have to chase pleasure or escape to Bali or throw your phone in the ocean.
You just have to stop postponing your aliveness.
Let me leave you with this:
If you’re feeling stuck or lost, take this as your sign: it’s time to stop waiting and start building the life you actually want.
You don’t need permission. You don’t need to finish one more thing. You don’t need to wait until it all feels perfect.
Life is happening right now, and it’s yours to live.
💛 Shannen