the secret to feeling good

Did you know that most people who become paralysed go back to feeling just as happy as they were before?

It sounds hard to believe. We imagine that if something terrible happened (a major accident or a huge loss), it would ruin us. That we’d never recover. But studies show something different.

Even after life-changing events, people tend to return to their usual emotional state. The difficulty doesn’t vanish, but it does become a manageable part of life. Like a scar that doesn’t hurt anymore.

The same has been found to be true in the other direction. When people win the lottery, they expect to be happy for the rest of their lives. But no, that happiness doesn’t last. After a short time, life begins to feel…normal, again.

Psychologists call it the hedonic treadmill: the tendency for people to return to a relatively stable level of happiness, even after major positive or negative events.

It’s how the mind protects us. If we stayed in the emotional extremes of every high or low, it would get in the way of daily life. The joys would make us lose our ambition, the sorrows would never let us focus. So over time, our brains adjust. What once felt exciting becomes routine. What once felt unbearable becomes manageable.

This helps explain why people eventually recover emotionally from major events like accidents. It also explains why the things we work so hard for often don’t make us happy for long.

And that’s something many of us get wrong. We treat happiness like it’s something waiting for us in the future. We keep delaying it.

As soon as I graduate. As soon as I land my first job. As soon as I own a house.

We keep delaying contentment—waiting for the “right” version of life before we let ourselves feel okay. Instead of noticing this pattern of continuously chasing new things, we stay on the treadmill, convinced that the next big thing will be the one that finally brings lasting peace.

But it’s not. The truth is, nothing in this world can make you a happier person. You’ll just keep coming back to the same level of happiness as before.

So does that mean we should stop working hard? Should we stop studying for our degrees, stop building up our savings, stop building our dream business?

Definitely not. Growing is part of what makes us human. We’re built to hope, to expand our horizons, to want better—for ourselves and for the people we love.

Consider this: Islam encourages us to hold down both sides. On one hand, we’re taught to strive, to work hard, and to seek better. On the other, we’re reminded to stay grounded in gratitude:

And maybe that is the right balance to strike. Maybe the goal isn’t to get to some perfect version of life. Maybe the goal is to keep doing things that give us purpose…while still slowing down and finding the time to be grateful for what we already have.

I can think of no better metaphor for such a lifestyle than this: to stop and smell the roses on the way to work.

Strive. Work hard. Find purpose.

But live. Be grateful.

Not because you’ve ‘made it‘, but because you’re still here. Still breathing. Still able to seek, to hope, to remember.

Islam doesn’t tell us to stop trying. It just tells us to stop forgetting what we’re already blessed with. Because when you only measure yourself against those ahead, you miss how far you’ve already come. You miss the beauty of your now.

So breathe. Slow down. Let go of the fantasy that happiness lives in the next milestone.

Because you're alive today.

And today is enough.