Happiness
There are countless folks who have deliberately (or more or less by bad luck) been miserable and somehow through that achieved artistic mastery (or at least so they or their biographers say). Scary to think about all the people who have been miserable in order to achieve mastery and haven’t succeeded while they could, theoretically, been happy and satisfied with lesser goals.
However, misery doesn’t work too well for me. It didn’t when I screwed up my love life to get more emotions, it didn’t when I felt I’m too “talented” to get a regular job, it doesn’t now when I’m driving myself crazy taking up countless commitments and then beating myself up for not meeting my own expectations. Or simply driving myself crazy with no reason or excuse at all. Sure, it gives me very interesting nightmares and spices up my marriage with new, inventive conflicts, but it doesn’t do anything useful for my writing. Nor for my job or for my kids or for my husband and friends.
On the other hand, when I’m happy I work better and I am nicer to people and sometimes I write and sometimes I don’t but either way I feel good. Sure, I don’t accomplish everything I’ve promised to and I fail in most idiotic ways, but well, at least I don’t spend much time obsessing about it.
Guess what promise I’m making today.
