Alarm Clocks, Empty Meetings, and the Price of Happiness

The alarm went off again. Half dreaming, half awake, I glanced at the clock. 8:30. My heart raced, my body temperature rose. The moment I pulled the blanket aside, the cold air reminded me of something important: today is Sunday.

And yet, my brain is already conditioned. Alarm means work. Work means those morning meetings with no real content. The kind that kill productivity. As a project manager, I sit there asking people, What are you doing? Is it finished yet? Why not? How can I help? Supposedly, my job is to manage budgets, time, communication, and clear roadblocks. Do I really have that power? I can’t say yes. I can’t say no either. My inner voice, however, tells me every day: You’re just wasting your time.

Someone else is actually doing the work, while I observe and dictate deadlines with the tolerant but insistent air of a colonist: It must be done by tomorrow. Why? Because someone else dictates the same to me. Because, in the end, projects have to make money.

My biggest advantage is my background in engineering—I’ve worked with electronics from the atomic level to the user interface. That’s why I never say this will be done tomorrow—because I know it won’t. I also know how empty my questions and suggestions can sound. Maybe that’s why earning the team’s respect wasn’t too hard: I simply play my role as if I were in a theater.

Every morning I wake up wondering: Why are we doing this? Why are we slaves to alarms? Why must I shepherd people? Why do we produce, deliver, solve problems, create companies?

The answer is always the same: money. And money, for what? To live. But would we not survive without all this? People lived for centuries without the things we now call “needs.” Sometimes I envy the philosophers, artists, and scientists of ancient times. They had nothing but observation, curiosity, and creativity—and somehow that was enough.

We, on the other hand, are trained for the system. Specialized like screws in a machine, our sole purpose is to hold something in place. We were educated for this, and in exchange, we endure endless noise. Most of the information we consume—perhaps 99%—is empty. It keeps our brains occupied, distracts us from nature, and drains our energy. By the end of the day, we’re exhausted, our mental resources depleted, leaving no room for creativity or genuine thought.

So we naturally turn to low-effort activities: scrolling Instagram, bingeing YouTube or Netflix, laughing at nothing, or following politics only to make thoughtless comments. Some try to find “the big picture” in this emptiness—and eventually lose their minds. It’s like trying to tow a truck with an e-bike motor, or running a high-performance game on a weak processor until the circuits burn out.

Or, conversely, we let ourselves be carried away by the mainstream—obsessing over cosmetics, appearances, Hollywood movies—activities that require no real mental effort.

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Lately, I’ve been asking myself: Do I really need all this money? If not, why am I enduring this stress? Why not do what I love instead of what drains me?

These thoughts often collide with the changing global political climate. It led me to another question: maybe happiness isn’t about individuals at all but about the collective.

Recently, while playing around with some data analysis as a hobby, I came to an interesting conclusion: happiness correlates strongly with money. People seem perfectly content as long as they’re doing what everyone else is doing, blending in, and not using their brains too much.

Looking at the data, the highest correlations with happiness (“Life Ladder” index) were GDP per capita, social support, and life expectancy. Unsurprisingly, life expectancy also increases with GDP and social support.

Generosity, on the other hand, showed little correlation—though it rose slightly with freedom. Freedom itself had surprisingly little effect on happiness compared to material factors.

This explains a lot. Why do people in authoritarian regimes remain silent, even when their rights are taken away? The answer is simple: As long as my pockets are full, nothing else matters. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

A successful system isn’t built on freedom but on social aid and a full stomach. Corruption only bothers those who think freely. For the majority, it only becomes a problem if it stops money from reaching their pockets.

One thing surprised me: while religions and traditions around the world emphasize sharing and generosity, the data shows that generosity itself has little impact on happiness. Social aid does—but personal generosity doesn’t. Strange, isn’t it?

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When I look at such data, I feel both lonely and hopeless. Because to me, freedom should make people happier. Freedom and happiness should lead to greater creativity and empathy. The data doesn’t necessarily deny this—but it shows something else more clearly: happiness is largely economic.

We measure happiness with money. And free support—“aid from above”—is always welcomed. You don’t need freedom for that. As long as the system keeps functioning, personal freedom is secondary. Born–Grow–Study–Work–Marry–Die is a cycle nobody seems to question.

Naturally, political choices and democracy also follow this logic. If aid is distributed, it doesn’t matter where it comes from or how. It guarantees votes. As long as money keeps flowing, corruption is tolerated.

In such a system, it’s normal to wake up to alarms, to live with stress and panic, and still be thankful for it. What’s even more normal is that freedom is not something people desire. Because freedom means questioning. Questioning doesn’t bring immediate happiness. And for society, maintaining order is often preferable to improving it.

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In the end, thinking differently, searching for meaning, or trying to “wake up” only leads to discomfort. Awareness breeds restlessness. On the other hand, living on autopilot, letting the system carry you along, and not overusing your brain seems far easier—and, ironically, far happier.

Sad, but true.