# Why you should focus on happiness first Focusing on big career goals and productivity may lead you to success and wealth, but may not necessarily make you happier. On the contrary, it might lead you to less happy places. That is, if you don't focus on creating/finding happiness in your life when making your decisions. You should focus on happiness first. Happiness is the one metric to rule them all. Status and wealth pale in comparison. They're shallow goals to aim for. Worse, status games are finite and tend to be toxic in the long run. ## Related - [[Chasing Joy Over Career - Why Happiness Should Be Your Priority Now (Article)]] - [[Optimizing for happiness]]